Is an accounting degree almost worthless without a CPA?

I think the $100K vs. $15/hour binary might be a bit extreme, and I think there's a correlation/causation issue at play here that you wouldn't be aware of unless you've been around the CPA profession. Hopefully, I can shed some light.

Note that being "CPA eligible" from a credit hour standpoint is a requirement for any student looking to join the audit or tax practices of any Big 4 firm. As far as I know, the same is true of the remaining "Top 10" public accounting firms, and probably some below them.

So right there, a lot of people who only have a bachelor's in accounting (assuming no 150 credits hours and therefore not CPA eligible) are filtered out of the best entry opportunities into the profession.

Next, there's the fact that you cannot get promoted to Manager (the third level; IB equivalent would be VP) at a Big 4 firm without earning your CPA license. The same is true of nearly every other second-tier national firm.

There is a very logical reason for this: in order to be made an equity Partner in a CPA firm, one must legally be a licensed CPA. Though most Managers will never make Partner (hell, most Senior Managers will never make Partner) the promotion from Senior Staff to Manager is arguably the most important non-equity promotion in the public accounting hierarchy, and a firm will not continue to invest in the development of someone who isn't eligible to make Partner. These instances are exceedingly rare anyway. I've only known one person who had to take a CPA exam with a Manager promotion on the line, and that was only because of his personality. The Partner he reported to probably kept promoting him because he knew he was intelligent/dedicated enough to knock the whole exam out last minute when the promotion was finally on the line, which he was, and he did. But he was smarter than most people.

$100K+ exit opportunities from public accounting typically require someone to have been at least a Senior Staff before leaving. Again, an inordinate number of people with the skill/dedication to get promoted to Senior (maybe 40% of new hires make Senior) will have passed the CPA before doing so, because frankly, the CPA exams are not that hard. I'm taking CFA Level III in a month and I'd rather study for all four CPA exams again than deal with CFA Level II a second time.

What all of this means is that people who have the CPA are far more likely to have had a distinguished career in public accounting before they came to an industry job. So they're not necessarily making $100K+ just because they have the CPA. What's at work is a strong correlation between people who are willing to sacrifice nights and weekends while working public accounting hours to get the designation and people who are highly valuable corporate accounting employees because of their experience and professional reputation. Obviously, there's going to be a lot of overlap there. Public accounting firms even offer a cash bonus for passing the exams in your first year, so if you have any sense, you get it done fast, while the college knowledge is still fresh and the cash is on offer. People who showed up to our second-year training having not passed it were already being looked at less favorably by their peers.

So if you started as an Accounts Payable Clerk with a Master's in Accounting (so 150 credit hours; CPA elligible) and passed the CPA exams, you wouldn't suddenly get a salary boost from $50K to $100K. Would you get a raise? Sure, I assume so, perhaps from $50K to maybe $60K at best. And your marketability would go up. But ultimately, it comes down to what your experience is, not just passing an exam.

I'll end with a silver lining...

I have "only" a bachelor's degree in accounting, but I picked up the remaining credit hours to get to 150 by testing out of many undergraduate courses and taking others over the summer. And I still made it into Big 4 audit, because the firms care about whether you're CPA eligible, not whether you have a Masters in Accounting. In my opinion, that degree is a really expensive CPA review course that was mandated by existing CPA's as a protectionist measure to keep the value of their designation high. The universities went right along with them because they make a killing on it. Nobody needs a master's degree to pass the CPA exam, and I learned more about accounting during my first five months in public accounting than I did in five years of college. I think the 150 hour rule is a bad look for the CPA profession, and it keeps a lot of talented people out of public accounting didn't want to take on debt to get a graduate degree in accounting. I certainly can't blame them.

If you are someone considering pursuing the CPA and you currently have a bachelors in accounting (so 125 or so credit hours), my advice would be to pick up your additional credit hours doing a finance degree, either bachelors or masters. Obviously check with your state accounting board first and make sure that will work for your hour requirement, but you're better of having both skillsets.

A person who has a Master's in Accounting but didn't finish the CPA exams will make less than someone who has a bachelor's and a CPA, all other things equal. And I'd hire someone with a dual accounting/finance major with a CPA way before I'd hire someone who got their hours with a graduate accounting degree, all else equal. Too many CPA's know debits and credits cold but couldn't discount a series of cash flows to save their lives and often miss the bigger picture because of it.