Accounting vs. Accountancy

If you have seen "Master of Accounting" at one school and "Master of Accountancy" at another, you may have wondered whether they are different degrees. In terms of terminology, accounting and accountancy are alternative words for the same field. What differs from school to school is the program behind the title, and that is where your attention belongs.

The two words, one field

In this directory, accounting and accountancy are treated as the same subject. The federal Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP), maintained by the National Center for Education Statistics, uses a single code for the field. Its title is "Accounting" (52.0301), and the definition covers programs that prepare individuals to practice the profession of accounting, with instruction in financial, managerial, cost and tax accounting, auditing, reporting procedures and professional standards. The classification does not set a separate category for "accountancy."

So a school's choice of word reflects institutional habit, regional convention or branding. It is not a signal about the level, rigor or purpose of the degree. A degree titled Accountancy appears alongside degrees titled Accounting.

What the title does not tell you

Real catalogs show how little the word predicts. Here are examples from the program records in our research data:

• DePaul University offers an Accountancy (BSB), a bachelor's degree. Its catalog says a student majoring in Accountancy completes courses totaling at least 50 hours in addition to two introductory accounting courses. The degree is counted in quarter hours (192 in total), not semester credits. (program page)
• The University of Mississippi awards a Bachelor of Accountancy (120 credits) and a Master of Accountancy (30 credits, with a minimum 3.0 GPA stated for full-standing admission). (bachelor's, master's)
• Florida Atlantic University awards a Master of Accounting of 30 credits at its Boca Raton campus, a different word for a program of similar scale. (program page)
• The University of Alabama lists the program as "Accounting, MMA" in its catalog while the catalog's own text calls it a master of accountancy degree program, described as a fifth-year professional program. (program page)

Now compare who each master's program is built for. DePaul's online Master of Science in Accountancy is, in its words, intended for students who do not have an undergraduate accounting degree. Walsh College describes its Master of Science in Accountancy as ideal for professionals seeking a career transition into accounting. The University of Alabama's program is for students with prerequisite undergraduate accounting courses, and its catalog lists 24 hours of them. All three carry the word "Accountancy," and they serve different applicants.

The reverse also holds. The University of Denver's Master of Accountancy admits applicants from any undergraduate field, with accounting foundation courses required for students who have not completed them. The catalog states that an undergraduate accounting or business major is not necessary.

What decides what a program is

Because the word does not settle anything, use the program's own statements:

1. The official title and award. Read the full title on the school's page: Master of Accountancy, Master of Science in Accountancy, Master of Accounting and Master of Science in Accounting are separate award names, even when programs resemble one another.
2. The credits and how they are counted. Semester credits, quarter hours and course counts are not interchangeable. DePaul's 192 quarter hours are not 192 credits of work on a semester calendar.
3. The admission requirements. Look for stated prerequisites, foundation courses, minimum GPA and prior-degree requirements. These tell you whether the program is for accounting graduates or for career changers.
4. The course list. Intermediate accounting, auditing and taxation courses show what is actually taught.
5. The program's own statements about licensure. Whether a program meets any state's requirements for the CPA exam or license is the board's decision, not the title's. Our guide on accounting degrees and CPA requirements covers this.

For master's programs in particular, our guide on MAcc, MS Accounting and MBA compares the formats, and master's programs for non-accounting graduates explains conversion routes.

Degree title, major and concentration

A separate source of confusion is where accounting sits inside the degree. A degree title names the credential itself, as in Bachelor of Accountancy. A major is a field of study within a broader degree, as in a Bachelor of Business Administration with an accounting major. A concentration is a smaller specialization, often a handful of courses inside a general degree. The word "accounting" or "accountancy" can appear in all three places. Our listings label which of the three applies, and you can filter dedicated degrees with dedicated programs or accounting concentrations with concentrations.

Practical advice

• Search for both spellings. A school that uses "Accountancy" will not always appear in a search for "accounting."
• Compare programs on credits, prerequisites, format and cost, not on the word in the title.
• Check whether a program counts credits in semesters or quarters, and whether prerequisites are listed, before treating two similarly named degrees as equivalent.
• Do not assume that one spelling carries more prestige, more rigor or better licensure prospects. No source in our research supports that.
• When in doubt, read the catalog entry, not the marketing page, and note the catalog year, because course requirements and admission rules change from one year to the next.
• If two programs seem identical apart from the word, compare their course lists line by line. Matching titles for intermediate accounting, auditing and taxation courses are a better sign of similarity than matching degree names.

Read how directory entries are checked on the methodology page.