With the high cost of education here in United States, students should always try to find ways to help finance their education, whether in the forms of grants, scholarships, student loans, etc. Of course, it is always nice to get grants and scholarships because you don’t have to pay those back. There are a lot of scholarships available out there and they are normally offered with various eligibility requirements related to athletics, music, being a minority,low-income, etc. I was a former recipient of this scholarships, which is offered to minority accounting students:

The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) is the national professional organization for certified public accountants (CPA), with memberships of more than 331,000. The AICPA and its predecessors have a history dating back to 1887. The AICPA Scholarships for Minority Accounting Students provides competitive awards of up to $5,000 to outstanding full- time undergraduate minority students to:

  • Encourage minority men and women of high potential to attend college and major in accounting
  • Provide educational opportunities for minority men and women to prepare them to enter the accounting profession. and ultimately achieving the CPA designation.
  • Encourage hiring of minority men and women in order to integrate the accounting profession in fact as well as ideal.

Requirements. Undergraduate students must have completed at least 30 semester hours or equivalent of college work, with at least six hours in accounting. Applicants must have at least a 3.3 GPA.

Minority Students - Defined. For purposes of this program, the AICPA defines minority students as those of Black, Native American, Pacific Island races, or of Hispanic ethnic origin. All applicants must be U.S. citizens. For more information contact the AICPA website.

Contacts For Filipino-Americans. The AICPA scholarship for Filipino accounting students is administered by the National Council of Philippine American Canadian Accountants (NCPACA), which is a non-profit professional organization represented by 11 accounting professional organizations from various major cities of USA and Canada whose memberships are mostly Filipino, American and Canadian accountants. Depending on where the student is located in the US, the student needs to contact the nearest Filipino Accounting Society on how to compete for this scholarships. Below are the 11 member chapters of the NCPACA:

  • Philippine Certified Public Accountants of Greater Chicago - Chicago
  • Illinois Philippines American Association of Accountants - Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas
  • Philippine American Society of CPAs (PASCPA) - Los Angeles,California
  • Texas Society of Philippine American CPAs - Houston, Texas
  • Association of Filipino American Accountants (AFAANY) - New York City,New York
  • Association of Filipino American Accountants - New Jersey City, New Jersey
  • Philippine Institute of Certified Public Accountants (PICPA) - San Francisco, California
  • Filipino American Association of Accountants (FAACPA)- Seattle, Washington
  • Association of Filipino Canadian Accountants - Toronto, Canada
  • International Society of Young Filipino Accountants - San Bernardino, California
  • Association of Filipino Accountants - Washington, DC