MS Accounting or Cert. of Accounting

I am currently doing the MBA at Chancellor and thinking once I complete my CPCU in Sept. I might either enroll at Liberty University's MS in Accounting, or cert of Accounting either at Chancellor or LSU.

I thought about taking finance courses, but I have done so much research and there is not that many options in regards to classes or pricing. It seems accounting is the better choice.

Based on my pricing, I have the following options.

Liberty University - 3 preq. courses and 8 graduate courses for MS in Accounting for $8,250. (33 x 750)
MBA + MS combined $17,250

Chancellor Univ. - Cert in Professional Accounting $4,500 (18 units x 250)
MBA + Acct Cert $13,500

LSU - Cert. of Accounting $2,634
[(7 classes x 262) + (20 proctored exams x 40)]
MBA + Acct Cert $11,634

Does the additional grad degree make that much of a difference? I would think either doing the CMA or CPA with the cost savings could be better than both.

NOTE: The pricing is for veterans discount.

 

Go with LSU, it will probably let you sit for CPA, check with your state. The rest is overkill. Unless you want to accumulate grad hours to teach, then again my state allows community college teaching with just a CPA or CMA.

 

I literally faced this same question last year. I teach at a few local colleges due to my MBA and CPA license but there are some states, particularly those in the SACS area, that are sticklers for a specialized Masters.

Although the certificate is cheaper, the likelihood of using those courses if you ever go back for the Master's is unlikely. Thus, I decided to bite the bullet and go all the way.

If your goal is industry, I'd only opt for the Masters at a school with a strong placement record. I wouldn't go with Liberty unless you lived in Central VA where the school name may have some meaning.

 

Not really looking at teaching accounting courses. If I do decide to teach, it would be regular business courses, or insurance related courses. My main focus is to gain accounting or finance knowledge while studying for MBA.

I did come across the UCLA extension courses and I'm like the online accounting courses they offer. I checked out finance, but it doesn't appear all of their courses are online.

For accounting, it shows if you have a business degree, I would need to complete the 9 core classes. It would be around 4,950 plus 150 registration fee for 36 quarter hours (27sh), which is not bad for a UCLA ext. certificate. I already have 10 accounting units.

As mentioned, I liked the Finance, Concentration in Investment Management but not sure if all of those courses would be offered online. It seems that CPA can open more type of doors like Financial Analyst, Premium Auditing, and even some Risk management compared to CFA that appears more arrow.

 

There's also this:

Master of Accountancy Online - Accelerated Accounting Degree Online