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 reviewed 28 schools in the Plains States Region to determine which ones were the best for master's degree seekers in the field of accounting. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 1,195 master's degrees in accounting during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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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 good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To account for this we consider a school'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 full 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 the Plains States Region.
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It is difficult to beat University of Minnesota - Twin Cities if you wish to pursue a master's degree in accounting. UMN Twin Cities is a fairly large public university located in the large city of Minneapolis.
Accounting master's degree recipients from University of Minnesota - Twin Cities earn a boost of around $13,599 above the average income of accounting graduates.
University of Missouri - Columbia is a great choice for individuals interested in a master's degree in accounting. Located in the medium-sized city of Columbia, Mizzou is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Master's graduates who receive their degree from the accounting program make about $65,250 for their early career.
Iowa State University is a good decision for individuals pursuing a master's degree in accounting. Iowa State is a fairly large public university located in the city of Ames.
Soon after graduating, accounting master's recipients typically make about $64,654 in the first five years of their career.
Located in the small city of Iowa City, Iowa is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Accounting master's degree recipients from University of Iowa receive an earnings boost of approximately $2,317 above the typical income of accounting majors.
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).