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Nearly 90 percent of accounting firms will hire as many or more graduates this year as they did in 2010. And 71 percent of the largest firms anticipate hiring will go up this year, according to the 2011 "Trends in the Supply of Accounting Graduates and the Demand for Public Accounting Recruits" report from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

According to the study, there were 226,109 students enrolled in all levels of higher-education accounting programs for the 2009-2010 academic year, 6 percent more than in 2007-2008, the last time the study was conducted. The 68,639 students who graduated in 2010 with accounting degrees was a record. Nearly four in 10 accounting graduates hired by CPA firms had master's degrees, compared with 26 percent in 2008.

The AICPA report also said an increasing number of institutions are rejecting qualified applications because they lack capacity to accept them. The report surmises this reflects budget crunches and a shorted of qualified professors as many longtime teachers reach retirement.

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