Accounting is of the hottest master's degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #10 most popular major in the country. So, there are lots of possibilities to explore when you're trying to determine where you want to get your degree.
College Factual looked at 12 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Accounting Master's Degree Schools in Illinois ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 510 master's degrees in accounting to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Accounting School for Your Master's Degree
Your choice of accounting for getting your master's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality accounting program can vary widely even among the top schools. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
The overall quality of a master's degree school is important to ensure a quality education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To take this into account we consider a college's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a host of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Average Early-Career Salaries
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their master's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. After all, your master's degree won't mean much if it doesn't help you find a job that will help you earn a living.
Other Factors We Consider
The metrics below are just some of the other metrics that we use to determine our rankings.
Major Focus - How much a school focuses on accounting students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other accounting students want to attend this school to pursue a master's degree.
Educational Resources - How many resources are allocated to students. These resources may include educational expenditures per student, number of students per instructor, and graduation rate among other things.
Student Debt - How easy is it for accounting to pay back their student loans after receiving their master's degree.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized accounting related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for accounting students working on their master's degree.
The accounting school you choose to invest your time and money in matters. To help you make the decision that is right for you, we've developed a number of major-specific rankings, including this list of the Best Accounting Master's Degree Schools in Illinois.
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DePaul University is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a master's degree in accounting. DePaul is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Chicago.
Master's recipients from the accounting program at DePaul University get $4,595 above the typical college grad with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
Any student pursuing a degree in a master's degree in accounting has to check out Loyola University Chicago. Loyola Chicago is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Chicago.
Those accounting students who get their master's degree from Loyola University Chicago receive $4,931 more than the standard accounting student.
Illinois State University is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a master's degree in accounting. Illinois State is a very large public university located in the suburb of Normal.
Master's students who receive their degree from the accounting program make an average of $69,295 for their early career.
Located in the city of Chicago, UIC is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Accounting master's degree recipients from University of Illinois at Chicago get an earnings boost of approximately $4,031 above the average earnings of accounting graduates.
Located in the suburb of Dekalb, NIU is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Accounting master's degree recipients from Northern Illinois University receive an earnings boost of approximately $3,491 over the average earnings of accounting graduates.
The bars on the spread charts above show the distribution of the schools on this list +/- one standard deviation from the mean.
The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) serves as the core of the rest of our data about colleges.
Some other college data, including much of the graduate earnings data, comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s (College Scorecard).
Your choice of accounting for getting your master's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality accounting program can vary widely even among the top schools. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
