SUMMARY
Majoring in Accounting is a valuable choice and naturally a requisite first step for students aspiring to pursue a career as a senior internal auditor, a senior tax accountant, or a certified public accountant. Interestingly, accounting is an extremely popular degree choice, ranking as the 10th most popular degree. Last academic year alone, there were 51,697 accounting diplomas received. In-state tuition for accounting at private schools is, on average, 3.5 times more pricey than their public rivals.
With an impressive 1134 institutions offering this degree odds are that any schools you are looking at will have a degree program for you. If you're looking to surround yourself with other accounting students, look at colleges in Texas which have the most students admitted to accounting annually. More generally, the top region to major in accounting is in the Southeast region with The University of Alabama, Florida Atlantic University, and University of Mississippi best representing the region. Interestingly, our selection of the best conference to major in accounting is the Southeastern Conference with The University of Alabama, University of Mississippi, and Texas A & M University-College Station representing the conference. Based on our list of the best colleges, our selection for the best school for accounting is University of Pennsylvania.
The 'best' school does not mean it is the best school for you. There can be tons more perspectives to think about when selecting institution. External stuff such as campus amenities, transportation services, and food would definitely modify your thoughts on which college to attend. At Authority, we have weighed the pros and cons for you. If, for example, you are interested in which accounting school has the top campus, the answer is Michigan State University. If you are very interested in which university has the top campus, we have an entire page dedicated to that. We have carefully pored through student reviews, government databases, professor reviews, and more to evaluate all U.S. majors in an unbiased and informative way. You can explore our comprehensive list for the colleges with the best student life here and, from that list, our choice for the university with the best student life for accounting is Georgetown University. Are you curious why? Keep reading to learn more about Authority's top recommendations. Some of our decisions will probably shock you.
If expense is a significant factor in your decisions, you might consider avoiding University of Southern California. University of Southern California is our most expensive school for accounting, at least for out of state attendance. We do have a page for the most expensive colleges that might put the cost of University of Southern California into perspective. For more context, you might be interested to know that accounting is the 100th most expensive program in the US, with an average expense of $39,000. On a broader scale, the most expensive state for accounting on our list is District of Columbia with tuition and fees at the primary three colleges equalling $49,070 at American University, equalling $54,453 at George Washington University, and costs of $54,453 at Georgetown University. To zoom out even further, the most costly region of the U.S. for accounting is the Far West region which is best demonstrated with Claremont McKenna College with a cost of $56,190, Pepperdine University with a cost of $55,640, and University of Southern California with a cost of $57,256.
Our cheapest region for accounting is the Rocky Mountains region which is represented by Brigham Young University-Idaho with a cost of $4,208, Brigham Young University-Provo with a cost of $5,790, and Western Governors University with a cost of $6,380. More optimistically, the most affordable university for accounting is CUNY Queens College. Authority's full list of the most affordable universities can be found here.
In-state attendees can expect to pay in the neighborhood of $9,500 for a degree in accounting. That cost balloons by a lot to an average of $20,600 for an out-of-state public-school student. On that note, our selection for the university constituting the best value for accounting: University of Pennsylvania. Through this link you will find our comprehensive list of the universities we believe to be the best value in general. Do know, this list is predicated on being an out-of-state student. A discussion of value changes when in-state tuition is considered, but we do not know where you live (and are not trying to collect that kind of data).
Earnings for accounting majors can vary, but two years after completing the major graduates will typically earn around $53,200. While there can be a lot of variation in earnings; highest paid earners can bring in up to $101,500. Right out of school, the minimum earning positions within the accounting field earn $27,100, which could be worse. The highest earning graduates from accounting studied at Bentley University and if you are looking for schools with all of the highest earning graduates, we have that too.
The general diversity of accounting sits solid, falling within the 66th percentile of majors nationally. The school with the highest composite diversity for accounting is Emory University and here you can find our comprehensive list of the schools which have the most diversity. The overall financial diversity of the Accounting major is only in the 18th percentile compared to all other majors. Racial diversity is actually greater, ranking in the 58th percentile. White collegians compose the largest share at 59% of those majoring in accounting. Additionally, 50% of students pursuing an accounting major are women.
The median score of accounting's professors is 3.8 stars, a ranking which is 5% lower than the median score for every major; this is a subpar ranking. If you are searching for the most popular accounting professor in the nation, take a look at James Powder at Los Angeles Valley College. It might be a shock, but the top ranked accounting professors by student come from CUNY Bernard M Baruch College. As we consider data other than basic rankings it becomes clear that the university with the overall best instructors for accounting is University of Pennsylvania. You will find an explanation of our evolving ranking methodology of the best overall professors here, along with many of the top examples of professors nationwide.
Finally, the hardest college to get into for accounting is University of Pennsylvania. While we are unsure why you would be interested, we have an extensive page of the hardest colleges to get into. That being said, we do hope you understand that approaching the higher education world through a lens only derived from superlatives could be said to be the root of many of higher education's fundamental issues. We at Authority encourage you to explore our other pages on individual colleges and peruse a few of Authority's helpful background articles on beneficial things to consider as your university search continues.