<p>Do all accounting majors make starting around 40k-60k regardless of the college if they get a job at the big 4? </p>
<p>For ex: do Wharton/some other top business school grads focused in accounting make a lot more than a person who graduates from a mediocre state school's accounting program? How much more? (like 70k for wharton accounting grads and 50 for some state schools accounting degree?)</p>
<p>Does anyone know how high that salary can get with experience? </p>
<p>Are there people that get MBA's after accounting? Is there a chance if you get an MBA to move to IBanking/consulting stuff?</p>
<p>Some make more, some make less. It depends on the cost of living in the city you end up but, yes, it is around that amount right now. The salary probably won’t be much more than 75k unless they have a MBA. That should answer your question that people do go get their MBA after receiving becoming certified in accounting. There are many options.</p>
<p>the majority of the people that get hired as accounting majors right out of college are usually hired close to their college they got the degree from right? like same state</p>
<p>The school will not make a difference if candidates are offered the same position and perform the same tasks. It would actually be illegal to offer different salaries based on the school because of discrimination, but I’m not saying that it does not exist though. (2nd question)</p>
<ol>
<li>Yes</li>
<li>In accounting, up to a million per year, but in general there is no limit.</li>
<li>Yes and yes.</li>
</ol>
<p>Tosh your posts make me laugh. You can pay 2 people different amounts for the same job LOL because one has a degree from a more prestigious job. </p>
<p>How did you come to this conclusion? What are you smoking?</p>
<p>If you pay a different salary to employees performing the same job, you may get sued. For instance, if there is a female worker that has the same position and performs the same tasks, and you pay her a different salary, she may sue you for gender discrimination. (it could be continued with race, color, etc.) But, it is happening because even statistics shows that in general females get paid less than males. However, the fact that someone went to a more prestigious school does not give you a right to pay more if both candidates are qualified for the job.</p>
<p>“For ex: do Wharton/some other top business school grads focused in accounting make a lot more than a person who graduates from a mediocre state school’s accounting program? How much more? (like 70k for wharton accounting grads and 50 for some state schools accounting degree?)”</p>
<p>Salary won’t change based on your school for the same big 4 gig (especially a 20K (!) difference)- you’ll get offered the same. You can try to negotiate it up some (but I wouldn’t expect to see a huge increase if you get one at all). </p>
<p>The pay is based on your region, cost of living, and position; not your school. </p>
<p>If you are better employee, you’ll get promotions, bonuses, and raises quicker. You’re not a better employee just cause you spent an outrageous amount of money on your degree(s). </p>
<p>Also in my region (apparantly this isn’t the case everwhere?), you don’t get an increase in pay/bonus for having a Masters or MBA. They only care that you have the credits necessary.</p>
<p>Tosh: I agree that big 4 starting salaries don’t change much based on schools. But people do get paid different wages all the time (through salary negotiations & (later) bonuses/raises). I dont think it is a legal issue - unless it is against a protected class such as sex.</p>
<p>TOSH LMAO Again age, race, gender are protected classes. People with degrees from junky schools are not. That being said I have seen this happen all the time. With accounting firms whenever one of our jobs makes it onto monster . com or something like that we end up with dozens of University of Phoenix grads applying. We just throw their applications away. Many accounting firms are very up front with this and it is entirely legal. We can refuse to hire someone based on where they went to school and compensate them differently if one went to a more prestigious school. A friend of mine went to Texas A&M and was able to negotiate a salary 10k more than the average big 4 employee since everyone loves Aggies. </p>
<p>Tosh it rather disturbs me how you just make things up…</p>
<p>Valley so how about schools in terms of accreditation. I’m not graduating until 2015, but insight now would be greatly appreciated. For example, Shippensburg’s b-school, Temple’s b-school, and Rider’s b-school and accounting program are accredited. Which of those would be favorable, when hiring, in your opinion.?</p>
<p>Accounting is a profession that is much less focused on university pedigree than others. Although, if you plan to start work in a different state/market than where you go to school, national recognition of the university is generally a must, which is what I have done. </p>
<p>The salary range goes up only for a couple things, namely graduate school degrees and prior work experience, and cost of living for the area. The range does not go up THAT much, however. The range is generally something within the ballpark of 42k-59k starting. However, those numbers increase every single year. There will be a 3-10% raise second year, and after you pass the CPA and get promoted to Senior you’re getting ready to catapult into the big bucks (Big 4 management or industry job after Big 4). </p>
<p>To a lot of people that starting salary doesn’t look that great, but remember that is a starting salary after 4-5 of college. That’s it. There’s no $100,000 of debt and years of school after that, although many get into the Big Four with graduate work. In order words, you can be on the road to great money much earlier on in your life than the Med school guys. </p>
<p>Some people in public accounting do get MBAs, but not as many. If you look at top tier MBA programs you notice a small percentage are accounting undergraduates. An MBA is generally not totally applicable to career progressions for accountants, particularly public accounting. Public accounting firms will not (at least none I’m aware of) help pay for an MBA program because of this. I do know of quite many that left public accounting and either went straight in or got a MBA degree to go into I-Banking, consulting, general management, investing, financial analysis, etc. That’s the beauty of accounting, it’s a bus that will take you anywhere!</p>