Degree Plan -- BSBA in Accounting (TESC)

[LaceyLady]

Excellent advice and information. Very good degree plan, Publius, and posting it will be helpful to others. Maybe sometime I should post mine (whenever I have enough time to). I just want to add a little and hopefully answer some of the questions.

As has already been mentioned, there are several options for most parts of the degree. Within the Accounting area, exams can be taken for Financial Accounting, Managerial Accounting, and Federal Income Taxation. The available accounting exams are CLEP Financial Accounting, DSST Financial Accounting, TECEP Financial Accounting, TECEP Managerial Accounting, ECE Financial Accounting, ECE Managerial Accounting, and TECEP Federal Income Taxation. All the Financial Accounting exams/courses duplicate, and so do all the Managerial Accounting. Financial Accounting (Accounting I), Managerial Accounting (Accounting II), and Cost Accounting (called Managerial Accounting at SL) can be taken through Straighterline, as Publius did. Accounting courses beyond these have to be taken as courses through a college. Options include LSU, Adams State College, Penn Foster, Columbia College, Upper Iowa, Indiana Tech, Fort Hays, Colorado State U-Pueblo, and BYU (it has been a while since I researched the courses in these schools, so this list might not be up to date). Off course, the courses can be taken at TESC (or Excelsior), as well, which is what I am doing, but other options might be less expensive and quicker (TESC courses are 12 weeks long and around $700). One consideration as to whether to take any courses at TESC (or whichever school you get your degree from) is whether you want a GPA.

Yes, I forgot to mention that I did go to my state's Board of Accountancy website to check on the CPA requirements. It does state that you need 150 semester hours from an "accredited institution" and 36 semester hours of accounting courses of which 30 semester hours must be upper level. It doesn't state in detail much more regarding the type of accreditation other than that.

That sounds like my state's requirements. And with the username AZDan...
In general, it is a good idea to contact the board of Accountancy and ask for specifics about the educational requirements. I haven't asked about NA (Penn Foster) or ACE accredited (Straighterline and Penn Foster) courses because I have not taken any NA or ACE courses (not accounting anyway), so I cannot help you there.

To fulfill my 150 credit requirement I was planning to get an MBA to cover that and then take the CPA courses.

Sounds like a good plan. I am thinking about doing something similar.

What I am hoping to determine is how many accounting tests (CLEP, DSST, etc) I can take before I have to actually take a class.

You can take two, Financial Accounting and Managerial Accounting, before courses (since these are foundational and most courses will want them as prerequisites). Financial Accounting can be a CLEP, DSST, ECE, or TECEP (or SL) and Managerial Accounting can be a ECE or TECEP (or SL). You can also take TECEP Federal Income Taxation, which might be easy for you if you work with tax.

Hope this helps!