If you pursue a master's degree in accounting, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #10 most popular program in the country. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 4 schools in South Carolina to determine which ones were the best for accounting students pursuing a master's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 165 master's degrees in accounting to qualified students.
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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. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
A Great Overall School
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.
Early-Career Earnings
One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of master's graduates during the early years of their career. That is, everyone wants their master's degree to be worth something, and salaries are one measure of determining that.
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 full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools 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 South Carolina.
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University of South Carolina - Columbia is a good choice for students interested in a master's degree in accounting. UofSC is a fairly large public university located in the city of Columbia.
Master's students who receive their degree from the accounting program make an average of $65,563 in the first couple years of working.
Clemson University is a wonderful choice for students interested in a master's degree in accounting. Clemson is a fairly large public university located in the suburb of Clemson.
Those accounting students who get their master's degree from Clemson University make $4,020 more than the average accounting grad.
College of Charleston is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a master's degree in accounting. Located in the medium-sized city of Charleston, C of C is a public college with a large student population.
Those accounting students who get their master's degree from College of Charleston make $3,919 more than the standard accounting grad.
Coastal Carolina University is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a master's degree in accounting. Located in the small city of Conway, Coastal Carolina University is a public university with a large student population.
Master's students who receive their degree from the accounting program earn around $64,488 in the first couple years of working.
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).
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. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
