The Student CPA

I recently came across a very interesting post entitled "Are New Graduates Getting Squeezed by the 150 Hour CPA Requirement?" and signed by Francine McKenna who is founder and editor of a very popular blog dubbed re: The auditors. In her piece, Francine spoke about how the 150-hour credit CPA education requirement is somehow pushing new accounting college graduates to seek a Master of Accounting as a mean to fulfill that requirement. Most importantly, she makes a pertinent remark when she points out that new accounting college graduates have little to nothing to gain in rushing to obtain a Master of Accounting. When you stop and think about it, she relatively has a valid point. Of all the business and accounting courses that constitute the required body of knowledge to be prepared for the CPA exam, Corporate and Estate Taxation and occasionally Government and Non Profit Accounting are the only two classes that are not included in the required curriculum of a typical bachelor's degree in accounting. This entails that the gap between the standard curriculum of a bachelor's degree in accounting and the CPA's candidate body of knowledge is no wider than six credit hours of accounting courses.  Anything beyond those six credit hours is inconsequential as it relates to having the proper training to give the CPA exam. I would love to sit here to discuss the usefulness or relevancy of the 150-hour credit CPA education requirement but it would be a counterproductive effort. I feel this way because I genuinely believe that the 150-hour credit CPA education requirement is here to stay and there won't be any turning back as long as thousands of students are graduating every year from universities with a bachelor's degree in accounting. What I intend to do however is to talk about how some universities are bucking the trend by offering innovative and business relevant Masters of Accounting. If you read my profile located on the upper right corner of this blog, you already know that I recently graduated from college with a degree in accounting and that I am in the process of applying for admission into a Master of Accounting program. As far as I am concerned,  I am interested in obtaining a Master's degree in Accounting because I would like to acquire the necessary academic training to become an expert in fraud examination and in business advisory. As I was researching universities offering a Master of Accounting, I discovered that while most universities offer a bare-bone like curriculum, a handful of other institutions are setting new benchmarks by designing innovative curricula.  A bare-bone style curriculum is one that has been put together without the student in mind since it does little to nothing in expanding a person's professional competencies. For instance let's take a look at the curriculum of the Master of Accounting offered by the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado at Boulder:

For somebody who has already completed his/her Bachelor in Accounting, the curriculum above does absolutely nothing to expand his/her academic credentials. Let's scrutinize this curriculum even further. Three of the required courses (Income Taxation, Auditing, Advanced Business Law) are part of the curriculum of most undergraduate accounting programs. As far as the elective courses, three of them (Advance Financial Accounting, Accounting Information Systems I, Accounting for Government and Non Profit Organizations) are often taken either as a requirement or as an elective by college students majoring in accounting. The Master of Accounting at the Leeds School of Business is more suited for graduate students without a background in accounting. If you have completed a Bachelor's degree in Accounting and are planning on entering a Master of Accounting program, be sure not to commit your financial resources into a program similar to the one above because you are very unlikely to get a return on your investment. The bad news is a plethora of Master of Accounting programs have the same characteristics as the one illustrated above. The good news however is more and more schools are setting themselves apart by offering curricula that allow students either to specialize into a specific area of accounting (Forensic Accounting, Information  Systems, Controllership) or to combine advanced accounting courses with other advanced finance and management courses. Examples of schools offering a Master of Accounting with a special emphasis in Forensic Accounting are: The College at Brockport, Duquesne University, and Georgia Southern University. Specializing in Forensic Accounting will guarantee you an above average rate of return on your investment because it is one of the fastest growing areas of the accounting profession. Some of the universities offering a multidisciplinary Master of Accounting are: The University of Baltimore (Assurance, Finance, Information Technology), The University of Akron (Assurance & Information Systems or Assurance & Finance), College of William & Mary (Integrated curriculum with a mix of Financial Reporting, Investment Management, Business Administration), and Portland State University (Emphasis in Business Administration and Financial Analysis that prepares the student for both the CPA and CFA exams). A multifaceted Mater of Accounting enables you to have much more flexibility in the way you  plan your career progression. In other words, you won't have to be boxed in either public accounting or industry because your acquired academic credentials will give you the freedom to work in other services areas such as consulting and or financial/investment management. College students should never loose sight of the fact that they are first and foremost customers and as a consequence they must never be taken for granted by universities.  If your state universities are unable to give you the best bang for your buck, you must not be shy to go get your master's degree out of state.  There should be no room for complacency on your part when it comes to investing your time and money in a post secondary degree. For my part, I intend to start my own list of Innovative Masters of Accounting. The goal of the list is to assist prospective Master of Accounting students to make more informed choices about the schools they should consider attending. If you know of a school that offers an innovative Master of Accounting, be kind to let me know by submitting a comment or by shooting me an email at ndansu(at)thestudentcpa(dot)com.