After all, accountants weren't the ones who exposed financial misdeeds at companies such as Enron, WorldCom and Tyco. In the eyes of the public, they went from corporate watchdogs to document shredders.

But for accounting students, neither Arthur Andersen's implosion after its conviction on obstruction of justice charges nor the recent spate of corporate shenanigans have soured them on their chosen career.

Morale is high, jobs are plentiful and students who once thought of certified public accountants as boring numbers-crunchers now see them as crusaders restoring integrity to corporate America and luster to a profession touched by scandal.

Lloyd "Buddy" Turman, executive director of the Florida Institute of Certified Public Accountants, says highly publicized "audit failures," as he calls them, have helped accounting "shed the green eyeshade image it had in the past."

As Julie Lindy, editor of industry trade publication Bowman's Accounting Report puts it, "The scandals have made accounting sexy for a lot of students."

Take Michael Massi, a 22-year-old University of South Florida student from Wesley Chapel. Massi is completing his master's degree in accounting and has a job lined up with Ernst & Young when he graduates next year.

"A lot of people who aren't accounting majors don't realize how important accountants can be," Massi says. "They're now starting to understand that accountants can break a company if they're not doing their jobs."

And there couldn't be a better time for new accountants to be entering the work force.

The federal Sarbanes-Oxley Act, passed in July, mandates sweeping changes that will spur the need for more CPAs. Observers say it will mean more work not only for the so- called "Big Four" public accounting firms -- Ernst & Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte & Touche and KPMG -- but also for the smaller, regional firms, too.

The important revisions include:

• Barring firms from handling auditing and consulting work for the same client. 
• Precluding them from performing both internal and outside auditing work for the same client. 
• Making firms rotate the partner in charge of a client audit every five years, as opposed to every seven years.

Meanwhile, the pool of new CPAs is 20 percent smaller than it was 10 years ago. According to the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy, 108,579 students nationwide sat for the CPA licensing exam in 2002, down from 136,536 in 1992.

The number of CPAs in the pipeline is also less than it was five years ago.

The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants reported that enrollment in accounting degree programs fell to 152,885 in 2000-01, the last academic year for which figures are available. That represents a 21 percent decline from 192,330 in 1995-96.

"The supply is not keeping pace with the demands of the market," says Stanley Levy, managing partner for Grant Thornton LLP's Southeast regional offices.

No wonder would-be CPAs such as Anthony Cunha of Tampa, a 29-year-old accounting master's degree student at USF, are smiling.

"It's one of the few majors where you don't hear people complaining," says Cunha, who will start next fall with Grant Thornton, the nation's sixth- largest public accounting firm.

Students at the University of Tampa are also getting the message. The school has 57 percent more accounting majors this academic year than it did three years ago -- 138 compared with 88.

James Krause, chairman of the accounting program at the school's Sykes College of Business, attributes the renewed interest to the fact that students want to be at the forefront of cleaning up the corporate mess wrought by companies such as Enron.

"Accountants are the law enforcement of the business world," Krause says. "We're the recorders of the past and the protectors of the future."

When Wall Street and the technology sector were riding high, many students shunned accounting for better-paying positions in finance and information technology. Now, they are giving the profession a second look, says Beatrice Sanders, the AICPA's director of academic and career development.

Last year, the accounting advocacy group launched a five-year, $25 million campaign to increase interest among high school and college students. The effort includes a Web site, www.startheregoplaces.com featuring CPAs with some of the more unique accounting jobs, such as the controller for the New York Jets.

"The core of the campaign is to reach out to students, and if they're interested in business, get them interested in accounting," Sanders says.

The job market for entry level accountants hasn't been hurt by the demise of Andersen, once a sought-after stop for new accountants.

In Florida, as elsewhere, the remaining Big Four firms acquired Andersen's local practices, meaning few Andersen veterans were competing for jobs with accountants fresh out of school.

In Tampa, Ernst & Young hired 26 Andersen tax and audit professionals, including Andersen's managing partner for Florida. Grant Thornton acquired Andersen's Orlando practice and hired several professionals from Andersen's Tampa office.

With the remaining firms picking up work, the competition for top accounting graduates is fierce.

"Salaries are going up, and deservedly so," says Levy, Grant Thornton's Southeast regional managing partner. "The profession is getting tougher. There are higher independence standards, greater continuing education requirements, more legal exposure. It's not an easy job."

Perks are also improving. At Grant Thornton, whose Tampa office gained several former Andersen clients, including Kane's Furniture and Arthur Rutenberg Homes, first-year accountants get 3 1/2 weeks of vacation rather than the customary two.

Firms are also courting students as early as their sophomore year, extending job offers earlier than they did in the past, and dangling perks such as $1,500 clothing allowances and signing bonuses of as much as $2,000.

"It can change your decision," says Zuwena De Freitas, a 23-year-old USF master's degree accounting student from Curacao, who's weighing offers from all of the Big Four firms. "It shows that a company really wants you."

Smaller, regional firms have benefited from Andersen's demise, says Lindy, editor of Bowman's Accounting Report.

Many, such as Tampa's Aidman, Piser & Co., which has 30 CPAs, see renewed interest from accounting students who no longer want to work for a big firm.

Students "are interested in firms that are smaller, more hospitable, where the boss is in the same building, not up in Atlanta or Chicago making the decisions," founding partner Terry Aidman says.

For students such as Melissa Hagood, a South Florida accounting student from Tampa who took the CPA exam last month, the changes buffetting the accounting profession make her feel her career choice is well timed.

"We were in school when all this happened," says Hagood, 23, who has accepted a job with Ernst & Young. "We're coming out with a fresh start, and an opportunity to lead our profession forward. Our job is just getting interesting now."