Cheapest Degree in Accounting or Business to qualify for CPA exam?

[nykorn]

I started looking at how to qualify to take the CPA exam and become state certified. It looks like I'd have to get a Master's in something like Accounting so am wondering where would be cheapest. The CPA exam doesn't require accredited education. I'd be in WA state.

Requirements to take the CPA exam:

- A Bachelor's in any field (I have one)
- At least 24 semester hours (36 quarter hours) or the equivalent in accounting subjects of which at least 15 must be at the upper or graduate level. They define this as "courses which have a prerequisite".
- 24 semester hours (36 quarter hours) or the equivalent in business administration subjects at either the undergraduate or graduate level.

As I see it I currently have 3 options.
1) Attempt to use two ENEB degrees (1 MBA + 1 Financial Markets & Asset Management) and see if that along with my Bachelor's get accepted.
2) Get an entirely new degree which satisfies all the Business and Accounting credit requirements by itself.
3) Take some certificate courses or single courses in Business and Accounting without getting a full degree.

It's a long shot that #1 would get accepted, and if I were to do #3 it would be silly to not go all the way and just get another degree unless it were significantly cheaper, so I'm interested in knowing what's cheapest for #2 unless there's something like free courses that would qualify me for #3. I'm a US resident and have European citizenship so I can also get degrees from Europe as long as they are online and not timezone-based with attendance requirements.

So far for the cheapest full degree, I found Master of Business Administration with the Finance specialization from Sikkim Manipal University at a total cost of $1,375 USD (only $1,238 if you pay the entire tuition upfront). However I can't even tell if they accept people who are not residents of India. I don't know about their accreditation or if it would be accepted by the CPA. And it's not self-paced, so it would take a full 2 years to finish. https://www.onlinemanipal.com/us-ca/onli...inance-smu

[lisarox]

Looks like Washington is a NASBA state and NASBA does accept foreign credits. They have to be evaluated by NASBA International Evaluation Service (NIES).

[nykorn]

Looks like Washington is a NASBA state and NASBA does accept foreign credits. They have to be evaluated by NASBA International Evaluation Service (NIES).

Yes that's it, they do accept foreign credits, if they're evaluated and pass the evaluation. The same as you can use foreign credits to get a WA state teaching license as long as they pass a NACES evaluation. 

I haven't yet looked in depth (I tried briefly, but didn't find anything) to see if I can find any discussions on which foreign school's courses were accepted by NASBA. But maybe there is something like a Finnish school without mandatory attendance of lectures, whose courses would be free for European citizens and which would be accepted by NASBA... Or maybe there is a really cheap American school out there. My assumption is since the CPA accepts unaccredited institutions they might be more lenient than I expect.

[kakasahib]

Looks like Washington is a NASBA state and NASBA does accept foreign credits. They have to be evaluated by NASBA International Evaluation Service (NIES).

Yes that's it, they do accept foreign credits, if they're evaluated and pass the evaluation. The same as you can use foreign credits to get a WA state teaching license as long as they pass a NACES evaluation. 

I haven't yet looked in depth (I tried briefly, but didn't find anything) to see if I can find any discussions on which foreign school's courses were accepted by NASBA. But maybe there is something like a Finnish school without mandatory attendance of lectures, whose courses would be free for European citizens and which would be accepted by NASBA... Or maybe there is a really cheap American school out there. My assumption is since the CPA accepts unaccredited institutions they might be more lenient than I expect.

I am not sure but suggestion and where other in this forum can clarify. but I believe UMPI BBA With Accounting does satisfy the CPA exam. Remember not all CPA have master so you may want to look at UMPI and Thomas Edison State 

like I said I could be 100% wrong where other senior members can provide more in-depth information. 
Thannks

[wow]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think you need to get a master's degree. Just need to have a combination of credits that includes at least 15 postgraduate credits. You could take five postgraduate courses without completing a degree, and have the rest be undergraduate.

[lisarox]

Master's degree is dependent on the state. I am in California, which is not a NASBA state. We currently do not require a Master's degree, but we require the 150 credits.

[nykorn]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think you need to get a master's degree. Just need to have a combination of credits that includes at least 15 postgraduate credits. You could take five postgraduate courses without completing a degree, and have the rest be undergraduate.

WA state requires more than 15 postgraduate credits in Accounting. It requires 36 credit hours of Accounting and 36 credit hours of Business subjects = 72 total credit hours in specific subjects. 15 of those 72 must be at the upper/graduate level in Accounting. I do not have a Bachelor's in Accounting/Business (unless ENEB counts as anything, which is iffy as no one's tested it) so I'd be starting from scratch for all those credits. I think if I'm gotta take 72 credits, might as well go for a Master as that will put me into a better position on my CV. 

If I wanted to get a Bachelor's, my gen eds from my Associates are almost 20 years old and a lot of schools won't accept them as transfer credits anymore. My Bachelor's was European and so it had no gen eds. 

I also can take the CPA exam in a state with less requirements for the exam itself (such as Alaska). 
Send those exam scores to another state with lower requirements than WA regarding getting the CPA license.
Transfer that out of state CPA license I got to WA.
That will take some time figuring out which is the easiest state to apply for the CPA license in after having passed the exam.

However I'm really thinking about the Master's. I know WGU's is about $4,700 if you can finish it in one term. I'm hoping to find some kind of online European school with no required lectures (like what I keep seeing for tech courses) so I don't have to pay tuition though.

[nykorn]

I spent a few hours today trying to find free European degrees.

1) Every European country I looked at required a Bachelor's (worth 180 ECTS) in Accounting/Finance etc to qualify for a Master's, so I would have to go for a European 3-year Bachelor's including final thesis.

2) Even if I did qualify for a Master's, every European Master's I found was two years long (I didn't find the one-year Magister degree option).

3) I speak Scandinavian and English but could find no flexible schedule degree in any of those languages. My current timezone absolutely does not work out with Europe (their normal class hours is like 2am my time, I've already tried and failed several times to take free European college courses from here). University of Hagen (FernUniversität) was the only free school I could find that clearly claims they have a "flexible" schedule as opposed to required attendance for lectures with set times. However they only offer courses taught in German and there is no way around knowing fluent German as several courses end in a 2-hour long exam.
https://www.fernuni-hagen.de/wirtschafts...ndex.shtml

So it seems my final option will have to be a US school. And frankly, even if I have to pay around $5,000, it is probably worth it to save 2 years of time and not have to do another final thesis.

[FireMedic_Philosopher]

The cheapest "public Ivy"  program is the online program on Coursera through Gies Business School
( University of Illinois). Last time I looked the 30 hr degree in management was 11,000, the 30 hr degree in accounting was 11,000, all credits therein can combine to give you the the 72 hr MBA which was another 8,000 worth of finishing work.

So for 30,000 you have three masters degrees and the U of I name. Each program is one year long and asynchronous, but does require cohort projects.

[wow]

Okay. I'm from Washington too, that's why I was confused by the focus on needing a Master's. If you want to get a Master's on your way and are aware that could make things a tad bit more complicated/expensive and are aware of that, more power to you. I was concerned that you thought the Masters was a *requirement* of Washington state and so you felt you *had* to do it whether you wanted to or not.

(As an aside, I thought I wrote a thread here earlier about someone who had qualified for Washington in part through courses on study.com that they later got transcripted at TESU as an enrolled student. This doesn't seem relevant to you, but may be something for those interested in getting CPA in Washington via the cheapest possible route to look into.)