Online Accounting Masters Degree

[joel66]

Norema,

This post was extremely helpful! My overall career goal is the CPA, too. I like the idea of having a company pay for the master's degree, but I really don't want to work full-time & go to school too. That would be a LOT of time away from my kids. I'm home with them full-time right now and have the time to get both degrees done before I go back to work. Also, I have pretty much taken all the accounting classes my local community college offers.

I am curious, though. What is Sac State. Is that Sacramento State University? Sorry if that's a dumb question. I'm a little new to all of this. Thanks for all your help!

Sorry, Sac State is California State University - Sacramento. If you already have 24+ accounting units, then I would suggest you get with your state to see what requirements you need within the 150 units. It might be that MBA could be a better option because you might need to take additional business units and try to avoid any overlap on accounting units. You might want to focus on courses that would assist you on passing the CPA and you might be much closer than you think.

For me, I initially wanted to obtain a B.S. in Liberal Arts, but changed my mind and went the business route. I have four classes left. By the time I complete my degree, I will already have 150 credits, as I have 140 units now. The quickest route for me is to get the 24 accounting units. I don't have to go full time and work full time, but the way the economy is now, I have been taking classes at my community college and filling in the rest at CSU-Pueblo and Penn Foster at a 15 to 18 unit pace the last year and working full time and saving as much money into my savings account as possible, in case I lose my job. My wife is also going to college full time at local community college to become a nurse and working 30 hours a week, as well as my son going to college full time at Sac State and working part time. I guess this is one of the reasons why I am trying to cut cost and was told CPA is in hot demand and not wait for graduate school because employers want to grab people who have a CPA.

As for graduate school, I know you want to get that out of the way, but I know there are schools out there where you can go part time and some are more at your pace. Just throwing out the route I plan to go to see if it helps anybody out there in the same situation as me.

If you live in California, even if you make 60K a year, still file for financial aid, because you still have a very high chance of getting a bog waiver and don't have to pay for tuition. If you have other family members in your household and going to college, you have a good chance of getting pell grants, which is why I am taking min 6 units at school and filling in the rest at other schools and test. You can get between 600 to 1200 per semester at local college, plus free tuition.

Joe