If you pursue a master's degree in accounting, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #10 most popular program in the country. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
College Factual reviewed 460 schools in the United States to determine which ones were the best for master's degree seekers in the field of accounting. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 18,187 master's degrees in accounting during the 2020-2021 academic year.
Choosing a Great Accounting School for Your Master's Degree
Your choice of accounting for getting your master's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality accounting program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
A Great Overall School
The overall quality of a master's degree school is important to ensure a good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To take this into account we include a college's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a collection of various factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Early-Career Earnings
One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of master's graduates during the early years of their career. That is, everyone wants their master's degree to be worth something, and salaries are one measure of determining that.
Other Factors We Consider
The metrics below are just some of the other metrics that we use to determine our rankings.
Major Focus - How much a school focuses on accounting students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other accounting students want to attend this school to pursue a master's degree.
Educational Resources - How many resources are allocated to students. These resources may include educational expenditures per student, number of students per instructor, and graduation rate among other things.
Student Debt - How easy is it for accounting to pay back their student loans after receiving their master's degree.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized accounting related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for accounting students working on their master's degree.
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Accounting Master's Degree Schools ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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Best Schools for Master’s Students to Study Accounting in the United States
Learn about the top ranked colleges and universities for accounting students seeking a a master's degree. Only those schools that rank in the top 15% of all the schools we analyze get awarded with a place on this list.
Texas A&M University - College Station is a great choice for individuals pursuing a master's degree in accounting. Texas A&M College Station is a very large public university located in the city of College Station.
Those accounting students who get their master's degree from Texas A&M University - College Station make $3,810 more than the average accounting student.
UT Austin is a fairly large public university located in the large city of Austin.
Master's recipients from the accounting degree program at The University of Texas at Austin make $6,495 above the typical graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
Villanova is a large private not-for-profit university located in the suburb of Villanova.
Accounting master's degree recipients from Villanova University receive an earnings boost of around $3,084 above the average earnings of accounting majors.
Located in the city of Washington, GWU is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Master's recipients from the accounting major at George Washington University make $5,262 above the average graduate in this field shortly after graduation.
UW - Madison is a fairly large public university located in the city of Madison.
Those accounting students who get their master's degree from University of Wisconsin - Madison receive $3,155 more than the standard accounting graduate.
Located in the city of Scranton, University of Scranton is a private not-for-profit university with a small student population.
Master's recipients from the accounting degree program at University of Scranton get $6,968 more than the standard graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
Located in the large suburb of Fairfield, Fairfield U is a private not-for-profit university with a medium-sized student population.
Accounting master's degree recipients from Fairfield University receive an earnings boost of about $8,054 above the average earnings of accounting graduates.
Located in the small city of Waltham, Bentley is a private not-for-profit university with a moderately-sized student population.
Accounting master's degree recipients from Bentley University receive an earnings boost of approximately $6,907 over the average income of accounting majors.
Located in the city of Provo, BYU is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Those accounting students who get their master's degree from Brigham Young University - Provo receive $4,658 more than the standard accounting student.
UMN Twin Cities is a fairly large public university located in the city of Minneapolis.
Master's recipients from the accounting program at University of Minnesota - Twin Cities get $2,714 more than the standard college grad in this field when they enter the workforce.
UW Seattle is a fairly large public university located in the large city of Seattle.
Accounting master's degree recipients from University of Washington - Seattle Campus receive an earnings boost of about $6,633 above the average income of accounting majors.
Located in the suburb of College Park, UMCP is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Those accounting students who get their master's degree from University of Maryland - College Park earn $4,286 more than the typical accounting graduate.
Located in the city of Syracuse, Syracuse is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Master's recipients from the accounting major at Syracuse University earn $6,823 above the average graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
Located in the large suburb of Fairfax, GMU is a public university with a very large student population.
Master's recipients from the accounting degree program at George Mason University earn $14,056 more than the average graduate in this field shortly after graduation.
UCONN is a very large public university located in the suburb of Storrs.
Master's recipients from the accounting major at University of Connecticut make $7,895 more than the standard college graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
This section represents the rest of the colleges awarded a Best Accounting Master's Degree Schools badge.
Showing in this list means the college was ranked in the top 15% of the 460 different United States accounting schools we analyzed.
The bars on the spread charts above show the distribution of the schools on this list +/- one standard deviation from the mean.
The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) serves as the core of the rest of our data about colleges.
Some other college data, including much of the graduate earnings data, comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s (College Scorecard).