Maybe my answer was a little short. I think the only MBA that would lend credit to someone who has a Masters Degree & CPA already over a CFA would be from an extreme top tier school. When I look at resumes I see a lot of MBA’s from low level schools that aren’t worth the paper they were printed on. If I was considering a top 20 MBA vs the CFA I would say MBA. If it’s Jimmy’s Online University then MBA program over CFA all day.
I have a problem with accounting programs calling their 5-yr program a “masters degree”, as if it had the same level of rigor. It doesn’t. It should be called a “I needed an extra 30 hours to be eligible to take the cpa exam so I took an extra year of classes I don’t need, didn’t learn anything useful from, and will never use” degree. Because that’s really all that a “masters in accountancy” is.
^To add to the above:
Right, wrong, or indifferent, college accounting programs are judged on how many CPA’s they can produce. And the undergrad curriculum is basically all prep work for the CPA exam. So as long as there’s a 150-hour rule, you’ll see a lot of these “Master’s degree” students with absolutely no work experience, and an extra 30 hours of virtually useless college classes, like “Financial Accounting Theory - The Evolution of the Double-Entry method”.
I don’t ever recall sending you a resume… 
It’s called the lost generation. Too many unemployed and underemployed people walking our streets.
I agree - some of the undergrad course are dual credit for the Masters which shortens it even more.
you forgot the most important part in the reasons to do it: you are paid more. I also hear that cpa jobs are less intriguing. redundant. and not really necessary. For the proside for accounting, i think it is more stable, less skill based. and more fact based.
^ Doesn’t understand accounting.
well im no accountant. but im juss sharing what i learned from convos with cpas.
This is the common perception held by a lot of “finance” people.
The truth of the matter is that one of them is an extremely boring job doing fairly repetitive work, while sitting behind a computer staring at two monitors all day, with the vast majority of your work being done on Excel or some other equally boring canned software. The other job is accounting.
What do accountants do that is interesting then? Serious question. Or are you saying that both finance and accounting are boring?
It all depends on the person doing the job. Lower level positions can be boring & repetetive as you are learning the ropes you won’t be given exceedingly difficult tasks, but once you get more experience your work can be as varied as you want it to be - especially in public accounting. In corporate you tend to work on a closing cycle, but even then it is never repetetive. Never boring
So then would you say-
<5 yr exp
finance is more exciting than accounting
>5 yrs exp
could go either way
I’m gonna disagree with this one. I worked in industry for a while, and it was the most boring stuff I have ever done in my life. I’ll never go back to industry accounting again.
I guess it depends on your position. Lower level is definitely boring. The higher up you get the more varied it becomes with special projects, acquisitions, process improvement, managing people, etc.
This is basically the same commentary I’ve heard from just about everyone I know in accounting
^But remember that there’s a difference between industry accounting (which is probably what you’re familiar with) and public accounting.
And even in public accounting, for most people, audit is nothing more than a three-year introduction to industry accounting.
You can check whether you should go or not for CFA by attending the CFA quiz at https://www.proschoolonline.com/quiz/cfa