THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2008
NEWS
3A
CAMPUS
Accounting program remains strong during tough times
BY MICOLE ARONOWITZ
editor@kansan.com
The economy is in the dumps. The job market is weakening. The government has just provided $700 billion to rescue the financial system. But Dave Kitchens is not the least bit worried.
Kitchens, a graduate student in the University of Kansas' masters of accounting program, has crunched the numbers and figures and the job odds are in his favor.
In an economy with such uncertainty, the University's one-year accounting graduate program is prospering. The program averages a 95 percent job placement rate. Last year, it was 100 percent. The
program's job placement rate is one of the highest on campus, and the University's accounting students' average CPA test scores rank among the top four nationally.
“If we didn't have a strong program and we weren't KU, I don't think we would have the same story,” said James Heintz, professor and director of accounting and information systems. “We'd have a good story, but I think ours is overwhelming.”
The demand for accountants has remained stable, despite the current economic climate. Kitchens said that whether the job market was strong or weak, taxes and audits weren't going away.
"Pair that with the fact that
many accountants are at the point of retirement, and you have the perfect work opportunity," he said.
This isn't the first time the accounting industry has withstood hardship. In 2002, with the collapse of energy company Enron and the Chicago-based Arthur Andersen LLP, one of the five largest accounting firms in the U.S., the accounting sector appeared to be entering a tough period. But the long-term effects turned out to be positive for accountants.
"Even though the company went under and a public accounting firm went under, it actually increased the need for accountants," said Lisa Ottinger, director of the University's masters of
accounting program. "Also, there was so much publicity about it that students became interested in the profession. It's kind of an interesting turnout."
Ottinger said the Enron collapse caused companies to enforce regulations to try to prevent something similar from happening again. Because of the fallout, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was passed by Congress in 2002. This federal law imposed stricter regulations on public businesses by setting requirements for how businesses must keep their records.
"That act changed the accounting and auditing regulatory environment," Heintz said. "It ramped up the requirements. That act has
caused an explosion in the demand for accountants beyond what we had before"
"With accounting, you don't want to do it yourself. You need a specialist's help." she said.
Paige Hatfield, an accountant for Lawrence's Mize, Houser and Company, said accounting wouldn't go out of style any time soon.
The demand for accountants is also reflected in the burgeoning number of students seeking to join the masters program. Ottinger said the program, a 30-hour curriculum, had grown 50 percent from last year.
Kitchens said accountants always stayed relevant regardless of economic ups and downs. That
continued relevance is a draw of the accounting program at the University, he said. Beyond that, he credited accounting professors such as Timothy Shaftel with getting students exciting about the profession.
"I enjoy everything about accounting," Kitchens said. "I enjoy crunching numbers. I enjoy the work that goes into it."
Kitchens would like to work for one of the big four accounting firms: KMPG, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young, or Deloitte. He plans to take his CPA exam after graduation, but said he was keeping his job options open.
CRIME
Edited by Scott R. Toland
Man kills wife, three sons, mother-in-law and himself
LOS ANGELES — The only hints of trouble in the big beige house on Como Lane were the newspapers in the driveway and the lack of any activity behind the front door.
But when police summoned by worried friends of the residents got inside Monday, they found a horror—six members of a family fatally shot in a murder-suicide committed by an unemployed father in financial crisis.
The body of 45-year-old Karthik Rajaram, a gun clutched in one hand, was found by officers who followed a trail of carnage through the home in a gated community in the Porter Ranch area of the San Fernando Valley.
Los Angeles County Coroners remove one of the six bodies found at a home in a gated community in the San Fernando Valley neighborhood in the Porter Ranch area of Los Angeles on Monday. An unemployed accounting industry worker who was dependent over financial problems shot and killed his wife, three children, mother-in-law and then himself in an upscale house in a gated community, police said Monday.
His victims, most slain in their beds, were his wife, three sons and his mother-in-law.
"Absolute devastation." Deputy Chief Michel Moore told reporters outside the home.
major accounting firm, and for Sony Pictures.
Investigators quickly found two suicide letters and a will, and determined that Rajaram held a master's degree and once worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers, a
But he had been unemployed for several months and his finances had reached a crisis point in recent weeks, Moore said.
"This is a perfect American family behind me that has absolutely been destroyed, apparently because of a man who just got stuck in a rabbit hole, if you will, of absolute despair." Moore said. "It is critical to step up and recognize we are in some pretty troubled times."
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Rajaram wrote in his suicide letter that he felt he had two ointions
— to kill himself or to kill himself and his family — and decided the second option was more honorable, Moore said. The gun was purchased Sept. 16.
The bodies were found when officers were sent to make a check on the home Monday morning after the wife, Subasi, 39, failed to show up at a neighbor's home for her ride to work as a pharmacy bookkeeper. Moore said.
Upstairs, they found Subasri Rajaram dead in one room, and the 19-year-old son, Krishna, a college student, dead in another, Moore said.
Officers found the mother-in-law, Indra Ramasesham, 69, dead in bed on the first floor.
In a third room, 12-year-old Ganesha was dead on the floor, and his 7-year-old brother, Arjuna, was dead in bed.
Their father's body was nearby with a handgun "in his grasp," Moore said.
Coroner's assistant chief Ed Winter said the victims were shot multiple times, sometime between midnight Saturday and early Monday morning.
Rajaram had no record of mental disabilities or contacts with mental health professionals in Los Angeles County, Moore said.
But one of Rajaram's co-workers at PricewaterhouseCoopers, Greg Robinson, told the Los Angeles Daily News that he had hired Rajaram to work at his management consulting agency, but then fired him in 2005 after seeing erratic behavior.
"He would miss phone calls and miss meetings and sometimes couldn't be found for a couple of
days," Robinson said. "There obviously was some kind of understory to his life that we weren't
aware of."
The oldest son, Krishna, was enrolled at the University of
California, Los Angeles, as a junior majoring in business economics, the school said.