UT Arlington > College of Business > Accounting > Programs

Professional Program in Accounting

Objective

The Professional Program in Accounting (PPIA) prepares students for professional careers in the public, private, or governmental sector. As part of this objective the program is designed to provide the educational background to become a Certified Public Accountant or to attain other professional certifications.

Program Description

The PPIA is an integrated five-year program that allows students to concurrently earn a bachelor's degree (either BBA-Accounting or BS-Accounting) and a master's degree (either MS-Accounting or MS-Taxation). The advantage of this program is that it permits students to earn both accounting degrees with fewer semester hours (and at a lower cost) than would be necessary if both degrees were pursued separately. For additional information, please see PPIA Brochure.

BBA/BS-Accounting Option

For students who choose to pursue either the BBA or BS-Accounting degree the PPIA program consists of the normal degree requirements for the degrees (122 semester hours), plus the normal degree requirements for either the MSA or MST degree (36 semester hours), less 6 undergraduate semester hours that are waived. The waived undergraduate courses are:

• Six hours of accounting electives.

Students select which master's degree to pursue, and the total program consists of 152 semester hours.

  For details on the MSA program, see the degree checklist (pdf 33K).
  For details on the MST program, see the degree checklist (pdf, 32K).

Availability of a Functional Minor Area
Students who choose the BS-Accounting option have a unique opportunity to complete substantial study in a second business discipline (economics, finance, information systems, management, or marketing) and effectively create a minor area of study. The integrated PPIA program provides the student with a total of 7 business electives (3 undergraduate business electives and 4 graduate business electives). All of these electives may be taken in a single business discipline (other than accounting) thus creating a functional minor area for the student.

The economics concentration has one extra course because the BS-Accounting degree requires an advanced economics elective in addition to the 7 required business electives.
 

The area of concentration (if any) selected by the student should be guided by his/her career goals. For many students a concentration in Finance or Information Systems will be the best choice.
          
For more information contact: candrews@uta.edu
To apply for admission contact: candrews@uta.edu