70 percent of the 2020 graduates of the Master’s in Auditing program—offered by Mainz University of Applied Sciences in cooperation with the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management—passed the certified public accountant exam on their first attempt. “That’s a very good result,” says Prof. Dr. Karsten Lorenz, the program director at Mainz University of Applied Sciences. Prof. Dr. Gunther Piller, dean of the School of Business, is also impressed by the result and congratulates the graduates “on this outstanding achievement.” The certified public accountant exam is one of the most difficult exams of all and consists of both written and oral components. The examinees are junior professionals from the world’s four largest auditing firms (the Big Four) as well as other major auditing firms who previously completed the seven-semester master’s program.
Since 2012, Mainz University of Applied Sciences, in collaboration with the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, has been offering the work-integrated master’s program for the Rhine-Main region. Previously, the Big Four—Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG, and PricewaterhouseCoopers—had issued a call for proposals for the best master’s program in auditing in four regions of Germany. The goal was, and remains, to train the next generation of professionals through the joint AuditXcellence program. At that time, 70 universities and colleges applied. For the Rhine-Main region, Mainz University of Applied Sciences and the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management were selected; since then, they have been running the work-integrated Auditing program in partnership. Mainz University of Applied Sciences is the only university of applied sciences in Germany participating in this private-sector initiative for the excellent training of the next generation of professionals. “I would like to thank everyone who developed this extraordinary concept and is implementing it so successfully,” says Prof. Dr. Susanne Weissman, President of Mainz University of Applied Sciences.
The Master’s program in Auditing combines academic study with preparation for a career as a certified public accountant. “The program is not only designed to offer a full-fledged Master’s degree, but it is also accredited under Section 8a of the Certified Public Accountants Act,” explains Prof. Dr. Lorenz. The advantage of this program, which has been very well received in the professional community, is that graduates aiming to take the certified public accountant exam need to pass only four exams instead of seven. And they have been doing so for nine years now with outstanding results. In recent years, graduates of Mainz University of Applied Sciences and the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management have consistently achieved very good results on the public accounting exam.
