New courses respond to increases in financial fraud
Alamance Community College will offer an associate’s degree in forensic accounting – becoming one of the first of North Carolina’s 58 community colleges to offer the program, ACC officials told The Alamance News Monday night.
ACC’s trustees voted during their latest meeting to approve the new Associate in Applied Science (AAS) degree with a concentration in forensic accounting and fraud examination, starting with the fall 2026 semester.
The new program will enable students to fast-track future careers as forensic accountants to meet employment demand in a field that ACC officials say is projected to grow exponentially due to a global uptick in financial fraud.
The new concentration is structured as three add-on courses – Forensic Accounting & Cybersecurity; Fraud Examination; and Information Systems & Internal Controls – to be offered along with ACC’s existing, two-year accounting degree program.
ACC officials subsequently told the newspaper Wednesday that they’ve been unable to locate any other N.C. community colleges currently offering degree programs with a concentration in forensic accounting and fraud examination.
The forensic accounting concentration would enable future ACC graduates to earn up to 32 percent more per year (the annual salary for an entry-level forensic accountant averages $83,250) than the starting salary of about $45,000 per year for a general accountant, according to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) and other accounting trade organizations.
Students who graduate with a concentration in forensic accounting could either transfer to a four-year university to complete a bachelor’s degree or substitute two years’ of work experience in order to sit for the Certified Fraud Exam (CFE), according to ACC’s senior vice president of student learning and workforce development, Dr. Justin Snyder.
The CFE exam measures students’ knowledge of: fraud schemes and financial crimes; fraud investigations and legal issues; and fraud prevention and deterrence, to the ACFE, which describes itself as the world’s largest anti-fraud organization comprised of 95,000 members in 180 countries, including CPAs, auditors, lawyers, investigators, law enforcement officers, security professionals, and executives.
Accountants who earn a CFE credential typically conduct investigative audits to trace and recover funds and other assets; perform complex analyses of financial data; prepare analytical data for litigation; and testify in court when needed, among other duties, according to the ACFE. “Because fraud is usually hidden, this process can be difficult and time-consuming,” the organization elaborates.
ACC’s lead accounting instructor, Bobbi Smith, who has years of experience in forensic accounting and fraud examination, helped to design the new program, vice president of instruction/chief academic officer Sonya McCook told the trustees Monday night.
ACC officials pointed this week to labor market projections: jobs for financial examiners are projected to grow by 21 percent over the next eight years; jobs for fraud examiners and analysts is projected to grow by 5.25 percent within the next five years; and job openings for general accountants and auditors are projected to grow by 4 percent through 2032, based on figures that were presented to ACC’s trustees.
The Federal Trade Commission reported $12.5 billion in losses to consumers through financial fraud and scams targeting consumers in 2024, according to an August 2025 analysis by the Congressional Research Service.
The U.S. had the highest percentage (38 percent, or 623) out of a total of 1,921 cases of organizational/occupational fraud among eight global regions between January 2022 and September 2023, according to the ACFE’s 2024 “Report to the Nations,” which detailed findings from fraud investigations in private and publicly-held companies, government, and nonprofits. The most common organizational types of organizational fraud were asset misappropriation schemes; financial statement fraud; and/or corruption such as conflicts of interest, invoice kickbacks, and bid rigging, according to the ACFE.
The ACFE found that, in 53 percent of fraud cases analyzed between 2022 and 2023, at least one pandemic-related factor (e.g., staffing changes and remote work) had contributed to the fraud.
The ACFE’s analysis revealed that 78 percent of organizational/occupational fraud crimes between 2022 and 2023 had been concealed by altering or creating fraudulent physical documents.
ACC’s new program will delve into artificial intelligence and other means used to carry out and conceal fraud – as well as uncover it, McCook told the trustees Monday night. “With all the fraud that’s going on, not only with accounting but in cybersecurity, we think this will be a good opportunity for our students,” she added.
ACC’s trustees voted unanimously, 11-0, Monday night to approve the new Forensic Accounting and Fraud Examination degree program. Trustee Steve Carter (who is also the county commissioners’ vice chairman) was absent.
