Society, State Agree on CBT
United Front on CPA Exam Costs and Other Issues, Except Grading

By Simon Eskow

New YOrk—State officials and the New York State Society of CPAs have found common ground in continued efforts to rectify problems with the Computer Based Test (CBT), the exam required to earn CPA certification, which has drawn criticism from CPA groups around the country.

Officials gathered for a New York State Board for Public Accountancy’s Examination Committee meeting on Aug. 19 expressed reservations about the steeply rising cost of the examination, according to attendee Robert Kawa, who discussed the meeting in an update for the Society’s Higher Education Committee.

“They’ve looked at the American Institute of CPAs’ research,” Kawa told the committee. “They’re concerned that the cost has gone from $250 twice a year, to $600 when the CBT was introduced, to almost $1,000 now. The fee is going up every year. …The board disagrees with the AICPA that cost is not a factor.”

Rising costs, technical problems at test centers, poor diagnostics and other issues prompted state boards to press for meetings with the CBT’s developers and administrators to air out differences. Boards also have gone so far as to suggest consideration of creating an alternative to the CBT, an idea that New York’s board formally agreed to at its June 29 meeting.

As a result of this outcry, the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy, which maintains a database of testing results, arranged to hold symposiums at its regional meetings. These symposia will include representatives from the test’s developer, the AICPA, and administrator, testing giant Thomson Prometric. As of this writing, the first symposium was scheduled for NASBA’s Sept. 14 conference in Washington.

Negative reaction to the CBT prompted the Society to establish a task force, headed by Kawa, to monitor developments in the area. Kawa told the Higher Education Committee that the Society and the state were unified in their concerns over most of the test’s problems, especially regarding cost. Other concerns include problems with the CBT’s current diagnostics, which are limited in its ability to show students where their weaknesses might be.

“I told (Board for Accountancy Executive Secretary Daniel Dustin) we’d like to cooperate with the state,” Kawa said. “I felt they are aware of our problems, and we need to get together and follow up on this.”

There remained a significant difference between the Society and the state over the state’s policy to issue pass/fail test results instead of grades. New York is the only state that does not issue graded testing results to CPA candidates.

Members of the Higher Education Committee said that scores would not only be useful in helping students understand where their weaknesses lie, but would also gratify their human instinct to know how well they do when they pass, especially when they are paying a lot of money to take the test in the first place.

NYSSCPA Legislative Counsel Dennis O’Leary told the committee that the pass-fail issue has been around since at least April, when the Society submitted a letter asking the state to address CBT problems.

On cost, committee members agreed that the higher price of taking the examination could “disenfranchise” some students, even in a time when, according to Committee Chairman Ronald Huefner, accounting program enrollment is on the rise. Testing costs and other considerations, members said, could deter future students from pursuing the CPA credential in preference for relatively unobstructed paths, such as a degree in finance.