Ranked #10 in popularity, accounting is one of the most sought-after master's degree programs in the nation. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
College Factual looked at 6 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Accounting Master's Degree Schools in Pennsylvania ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 428 master's degrees in accounting during the 2022-2023 academic year.
DEBUG: Checking offer "Accounting (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Accounting (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Accounting (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Accounting (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Accounting (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Accounting (I Have a Bachelors)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MBA - Accounting (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "MBA - Accounting (I Have a Bachelors)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Accounting (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Accounting (I Have a Masters)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "BS in Accounting" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "BS in Accounting" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "AS in Accounting" with relevance 0.9
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "AS in Accounting" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.9)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MBA in Accounting" with relevance 0.9
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "MBA in Accounting" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.9)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MS in Accounting" with relevance 0.9
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "MS in Accounting" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.9)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Forensic Accounting (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Forensic Accounting (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Forensic Accounting (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Forensic Accounting (I Have a Bachelors)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MBA - Forensic Accounting (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "MBA - Forensic Accounting (I Have a Bachelors)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "BS in Business Administration - Accounting" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "BS in Business Administration - Accounting" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: relevant_offers count = 13
DEBUG: relevant_offers > 0, checking for ESYOH offers
DEBUG: ESYOH filtering - found 8 ESYOH offers with relevance >= 0.8
DEBUG: esyoh_offers count = 8
DEBUG: ESYOH offers found, rendering ESYOH widget
DEBUG: most_relevant_only = true, filtering for most relevant
DEBUG: Found 5 offers with relevance >= 1.0
Choosing a Great Accounting School for Your Master's Degree
The accounting master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
A school that excels in educating for a particular major and degree level must be a great school overall as well. To make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.
Average Earnings
To determine the overall quality of a graduate school, one factor we look at is the average early-career salary of those receiving their master's degree from the school. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their master's degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.
Other Factors We Consider
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to accounting students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of accounting students who choose to seek a master's degree at the school.
Educational Resources - The amount of money and other resources allocated to students while they are pursuing their degree. These resources include such things as number of students per instructor and education expenditures per student.
Student Debt - How much debt accounting students go into to obtain their master's degree and how well they are able to pay back that debt.
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.
When choosing the right school for you, it's important to arm yourself with all the facts you can. To that end, we've created a number of major-specific rankings, including this Best Accounting Master's Degree Schools in Pennsylvania list to help you make the college decision.
DEBUG: Raw major_slug = "business-management-marketing-sales//accounting"
Every student who is interested in a master's degree in accounting has to take a look at Villanova University. Located in the suburb of Villanova, Villanova is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Accounting master's degree recipients from Villanova University get an earnings boost of about $12,287 over the average income of accounting majors.
It's hard to beat University of Scranton if you wish to pursue a master's degree in accounting. University of Scranton is a small private not-for-profit university located in the city of Scranton.
Those accounting students who get their master's degree from University of Scranton receive $3,730 more than the average accounting student.
It is hard to beat Duquesne University if you wish to pursue a master's degree in accounting. Located in the city of Pittsburgh, Duquesne is a private not-for-profit university with a medium-sized student population.
Students who graduate with their master's from the accounting program state that they receive average early career income of $61,677.
La Salle is a small private not-for-profit university located in the city of Philadelphia.
Accounting master's degree recipients from La Salle University get an earnings boost of approximately $3,736 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).
by our College Data Analytics Team
The accounting master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
