Help on TESC Residency Requirement for International Students

[Yanji]

I don't understand why you feel so strongly about TESC. Do you want an American degree? Once you become a CPA, nobody cares where your degree's from unless maybe it was from a highly-ranked business school, and even then it's the CPA part that matters most. Even MSA degrees don't mean much once you're a CPA since everyone needs 150 hours now anyway. If you have good general knowledge and know another language, you could literally walk into a testing center tomorrow morning, do 30 credits worth of CLEPs in one day, set up an Excelsior Credit Bank when you get home, and before the month is even over you would have your 150 hours in the bag. Let's compare the costs:

PF/TESC Route:
PF Tuition (30 @ $79/cr) - $2370
TESC Enrollment Fee - $3154
TESC Technology Fee - $125
TESC Graduation Fee - $300 (optional if you don't want a degree... but then what's the point?)
Total - $5949

CLEP Route:
CLEP Fees (4 @ $80) - $320 (easy with a second language... e.g. Spanish, Humanities, A&I Lit, Social Sciences)
Testing Fees (4 @ $20) - $80
EC Credit Bank Fee - $270
Total - $670

That's a difference of over $5000 and at least 6-8 months. Even if you don't live in the US, for that kind of money you could fly here, rent a Mercedes, take the exams in 1-2 days, stay at a Four Seasons, fly home and have money left over for a bottle of Dom Perignon to celebrate when you get your CPA. Even better, you could take that money and register in a good CPA review course, spend those 6-8 months preparing for the CPA and have your CPA in hand (assuming you meet the experience requirements) as early as August or September. You could even buy yourself a case of Dom Perignon to celebrate with the money you had leftover.