Inexpensive online Masters in Accounting\Accountancy\Accounting Science?

Thank you. Will a further look into this program at Emporia. @freeloader Do you mind telling us a bit about how the classes are conducted at this school? Are they synchronous or asynchronous? How's the communication with the instructors and peers setup?

 

I believe it is asynchronous.

 

Marshall is asynchronous.

One other degree that I will throw out there: the MBA with Accounting Concentration from University of the Cumberlands. The degree is 37 hours total and includes 18 hours of accounting (3 in the MBA core and the 15 hour ACC concentration). Most MBAs in Accounting seem to have maybe 9 to 12 hours in accounting, so this is a bit of an anomaly. 18 hours in accounting is the same you would be getting in that Union program, after all…. The price is right ($315/ hour, so $11,655 total). The knocks on Cumberlands are that it “only” has IACBE programmatic accreditation and it is a fairly conservative school (Baptist, I think), if that matters to you. FWIW, I took a few accounting classes from them and religion wasn’t integrated into the classes. It didn’t really come up, other than the introductory posts everybody did at the beginning of the term (people talking about being active in their church, being a volunteer youth minister,etc)
https://www.ucumberlands.edu/academics/graduate/programs/master-business-administration

 

If looking for an MBA in Accounting, that opens the door to a TON of AACSB programs that are in the $10K-$12K range though.

 

As noted, I start in the fall at Marshall, so I can’t speak to the technical setup, quality of instruction, or similar at this point.

 

Yeah, but how much accounting coursework are you getting. Emporia State, 33 hours total and ~$12k has 12 hours of accounting. LSU Shreveport, 30 hours total, ~$12.5k has 12 hours of accounting. Southern Indiana, 30 hours total $12.9k has 12 hours of accounting. SE Oklahoma is $12.1k, 36 total hours with 15 of accounting. Those are all AACSB, BTW.

There are others, of course. Those are all programs I seriously considered. SE Oklahoma was really tempting, if I am honest. That program only requires financial and managerial accounting for admissions, though, and I was curious if those classes would really be graduate level (which I wanted).

 

I completely forgot about Missouri State. Total tuition is $10,200 and AACSB accredited. Unless they have a Covid-related waiver, you would need the GMAT though. https://www.missouristate.edu/SOA/Graduate/Online.htm

 

Nice find. This program has an awesome price point.

 

I’m in the Emporia M.Acc program, so I’ll hit the highlights. 24 hours of accounting, six of restricted electives is my curriculum. And in Kansas you need a business law and a quantitative analysis course for the CPA, so those are the usual two electives chosen, but if you’re not in Kansas you have options.

Courses are all asynchronous, but some have had non-mandatory Zoom sessions. Those have been nice, but nothing that disadvantages students who can’t make it. Standard online course stuff, discussion boards, quizzes, essays.
7 week courses keep it moving but not overwhelming. Grading has been very fair in my opinion, with a heavier focus on substance than form and style in the essays.

Looking at your transcripts, you’d be well prepared for this program. Emporia doesn’t require AIS for admission. (Though you have to take an AIS course to graduate.) Every course has included a little refresher in stuff I was already familiar with before moving on.

Marshall is quite honestly a bigger national name, but this program at ESU is good and fairly priced.

And as much as Illinois Urbana Champaign is a huge name school, the iMSA is designed for folks with a lot less transcripted accounting credits than you have.

 

Emporia State was fun. I enjoyed living in Emporia so I can only imagine that the M.Acc is a well thought out program. If I were looking into accounting, that'd be a great value from a great school.

 

Thank you. It's good to know the grading information, plus the fact that Emporia doesn't require AIS credits for admission. That will speed things up a bit.

 

An MBA with an Accounting concentration could work, but these programs are generally more expensive and less focused right?

 

Right. To keep using Emporia, because I've become very familiar with the catalog, the MBA Accounting includes exactly 12 hours under an accounting prefix. No more, no less. The M.Acc includes a minimum of 21 and a max of 24 hours under the accounting prefix. Note an important distinction for some folks -- the MBA Accounting does not have 18 hours of AC prefix work. I'm not looking to teach, so I don't know if that will matter should you later decide to do so? Also, the 12 credits you take in the MBA overlap exactly 12 of the 21/24 in the M.Acc; so they're the same work, just less overall accounting content throughout the degree.

(Both programs cost the same per credit hour, but the MBA is also 3 credits longer overall.)

Eastern Washington is a bit different; the MPAcc includes 36 quarter credits in accounting all of which show an ACCT prefix; https://online.ewu.edu/degrees/business/mpacc/mpacc/

Now note their MBA with a concentration in accounting; https://online.ewu.edu/degrees/business/mba/accounting/. Notice something? None of the classes have the ACCT prefix (which we already established EWU uses!). Only one appears to be the same course with a different prefix (ACCT/BADM 557). Again, like Emporia, while both programs cost the same per credit, the MBA has an extra two classes here.

(As an aside, by swapping a grand total of two courses, you could also get EWU to award an MBA in finance. https://online.ewu.edu/degrees/business/mba/finance/

I'd love to find more examples of schools that offer both degrees to compare.

 

Thank you. I spoke to Missouri State and they are waving the GMAT. But at this point–I don't see any brand differences between Missouri State, Emporia, Marshall, and even Eastern Washington, or is there one? Though, I would have to agree that Marshall has the nicest colors. I guess, i'll be paying 2k extra for that.

 

Stoic, how important are speed and flexibility?

Marshall and Missouri State are both, as I understand it, smaller programs that offer fewer courses each term. Marshall used a conventional semester schedule for most, if not all, of their graduate-level accounting courses. Emporia and EWU

 

I'm not in a hurry. But I forgot a lot of what I learned in my undergrad, so I think I need a refresher. Looks like Marshall can provide that but I'm not sure. So essentially what you're also saying is that with Marshall or Missouri State I'm going to play the "sign up to courses early" or deal with "waitlists" game? The other institutions like Emporia and EWU have more flexibility around this area since they seem to have advanced their processes with online education? I do remember at one point I tried to sign up to the RBA from Marshall but it seemed so slow, that I went with UMPI for speed purposes. Because Marshall was quite old school in the way that you would pick your classes, etc.

 

Texas A&M Corpus Christi uses ACCT prefix for both the MAcc and MBA Accounting: https://online.tamucc.edu/

Texas Permian Basin uses ACCT prefix for both the MPAcc and MBA Accounting:
https://www.utpb.edu/academics/online-learning/online-programs

West Florida uses ACG and TAX prefixes for both the MAcc and MBA Accounting:
https://onlinedegrees.uwf.edu/online-degrees/macc-masters-accountancy/
https://getonline.uwf.edu/programs/master-of-business-administration-accounting.aspx#courses

Pittsburg State uses ACCTG for both the MPAcc (not online) and the online MBA Accounting:
https://degree.pittstate.edu/online-programs/mba/accounting/
https://www.pittstate.edu/registrar/catalog/archive/2021-2022/college-of-business/graduate/master-of-professional-accountancy.pdf

From what I have seen, EWU seems to be an outlier.

 

Sorry, I actually didn’t mean to post my prior message about speed and flexibility—hadn’t finished it. I was going to talk about EWU having 7 terms per year and Emporia having 6. Marshall is conventional semesters and I believe Missouri State is as well. If you are only taking 1 class at a time, your degree will take you twice as long as EWU or Emporia. Marshall only seems to offer most of its courses once per year (or less for some of the non-required courses). Just things to consider.