Until July 1, 2015 students applying for licensure as CPAs in the State of Colorado must complete a total of 120 semester hours. These hours must include a minimum of 27 semester hours in accounting, three of which must be in auditing. Also these hours must include 21 semester hours in other areas of business administration such as business law, management, marketing, statistics, business communications, economics, and finance. No more than six semester hours in any single area may be used to satisfy this 21 hour requirement.
Until July 1, 2015 in Colorado, individuals may be licensed as CPAs without professional apprentice experience if they have 30 semester hours of course work beyond the credits applied for the bachelor’s degree and 45 hours of accounting courses in their combined undergraduate and graduate studies. However, this option will no longer be available after July 1, 2015.
As of July 1, 2015, students applying for licensure as CPAs in the State of Colorado must complete a total of 150 semester hours, including 27 hours of upper-division accounting. Six of these semester hours must be in auditing and three of the semester hours must be in accounting ethics. These hours must include at least 27 semester hours in upper-division business courses, of which three semester hours must be in business, technical, or accounting communications. No more than nine semester hours in any single area may be used to satisfy this requirement.
Students should understand the requirements for sitting for the CPA and for the CPA licensure early in their accounting educations. More information about these topics is available at the Colorado Board of Accountancy website: http://www.dora.state.co.us/accountants/. Students also should be aware that most states now require a minimum of 150 semester hours to be licensed as a CPA. Students who plan to leave Colorado should check the specific requirements of the states to which they may relocate.
To accommodate the new changes that will be in effect July 1st, 2015 for CPA licensure, the College of Business has developed a 4+1 BS-MBA degree program. The accounting 4+1 BS-MBA degree program provides a student enrolled as an undergraduate in the accounting program at UCCS an opportunity to concurrently: 1) meet the Colorado law requiring 150 hours of post-secondary education to be licensed as a CPA and 2) earn a Bachelor of Science in Business and a Master of Business Administration with emphases in Accounting in 5 years. To be eligible for this program, students must have completed ACCT 3010, 3020 and 3110 with B’s or better in each course and have a cumulative GPA of a 3.25 or above. Students must apply for admission to the MBA program well in advance of their last semester as an undergraduate and must meet the regular admissions requirements for the MBA program (no provisional admission allowed). For students already possessing a bachelor’s degree who are interested in CPA licensure should consider a MBA degree to be able to fulfill the necessary state requirements and to be competitive in the job market.
