MSA Foundations Program

The College of Business and Economics at Boise State University begins a new online graduate degree track this fall, the Master of Science in Accountancy Foundations program. The program provides an entry point for prospective graduate students who don’t have an accountancy undergraduate degree.

Boise State recognizes there are people in the workforce and at the university that enter the accounting profession through nontraditional avenues. The program provides a flexible degree for prospective accounting graduate students who don’t have an accountancy undergraduate degree.

It helps more students to earn a Master of Science in Accountancy, advance their careers and become licensed CPAs. The foundations program expands the boundaries of higher education and opens career opportunities for many more.

Previously, those admitted to the Boise State Master of Science in Accountancy program at Boise State were required to have taken six specific upper-division courses. While those courses are common in accountancy undergrad programs, applicants from related fields had to take these prerequisites at other institutions or as accounting undergrads at Boise State. Now these prospective students can opt into a graduate program that begins with these prerequisites for a seamless experience at Boise State.

The master’s program develops skills and fulfills academic credit requirements to sit for the Certified Public Accountant (CPA) exam. Its flexible options cater to students with a variety of educational backgrounds, including those without a foundational education in accounting.

The 33 to 48-credit Foundations program will utilize the existing curriculum currently offered for our 30-credit online Master of Science in Accountancy (MSA) program and will add foundational accounting courses designed to prepare students for the more advanced topics. The flexible, variable credit program allows students to build a master’s degree that includes the foundational accounting knowledge they need, without having to re-take courses already completed at the undergraduate level.

These prerequisite courses will train students on financial statement preparation and analysis, tax procedures and planning, and information technology and data analytics. Program participants will receive training in management decision making and business processes. They will learn how to research current accounting topics independently to stay up-to-date on new laws and technologies in their field.