ACCA USA – The US arm of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants – and Pace University have announced a landmark partnership designed to attract international students to Pace’s Lubin School of Business starting this fall.
On Thursday, ACCA USA and Pace announced plans to link ACCA’s globally recognized qualification program to both graduate and undergraduate coursework at the New York-based higher education institution, which has campuses in Downtown Manhattan and suburban Westchester.
“Pace and ACCA USA share common and strong interests in education and the sustainable development of the accounting profession, regionally and internationally,” said Neil Braun, Dean, Lubin School of Business at Pace University, “in particular concerning the maintenance and promotion of professional, educational and ethical standards, the opportunity for individuals of ability to pursue globally relevant qualifications to enhance their career prospects and ultimately to maintain and develop the profession and the wider economy.”
Starting this fall, both graduate and undergraduate students in the Lubin School of Business’s Department of Accounting will be able to complete coursework that will qualify them for specific exemptions from ACCA’s 14 exams; the exemptions will initially include four for graduate courses and five for undergraduate courses.
That means that a student who successfully graduates from Pace’s rigorous program will automatically receive exemptions for those specific exams and be able to use them towards the completion of the ACCA qualification.
“Across the globe, ACCA has forged partnerships with higher education institutions to educate and train some of the best and brightest accounting professionals. This new partnership ushers in a new era in the United States and we are proud to partner with Pace University’s exceptional Lubin School of Business,” said Warner Johnston, Head of ACCA USA.
ACCA is a global body for professional accountants, with 92 offices accommodating 170,000 members and 436,000 students in 180 countries.
The program is expected to attract a healthy number of international students interested in obtaining both a degree while working towards their ACCA qualification. An ACCA survey recently found that nearly three quarters of current ACCA students studying away from their home country would have been interested in studying ACCA in the United States had it been available when selecting their program.
Pace University already is an attractive institution for international students. For Fall 2014, 56% of all graduate accounting students were international. On the undergraduate side, 7% of all accounting students were international. The Lubin School of Business has a large and diverse international student population with 972 students representing 84 nations.
ACCA qualified accountants have leveraged their education to hold impressive careers and work for many leading global employers at the C-suite level in positions including Managing Partners, COOs, CFOs, Executive Directors and CEOs. More than 35,000 ACCA members are employed by the Big 4 across the globe, with significant numbers in the USA, China and the U.K.
More details on the new initiative are available at www.accaglobal.com/USApartnerships.
