Principles of Finance Certificate
Understand the language of finance, learn to interpret and communicate important financial information, and gain knowledge in key areas such as budgeting, investment, shareholder value, and risk. Through this professional graduate certificate, you gain the ability to use financial information to make business decisions.
Key learning outcomes
- Enhance your knowledge of the tools and analysis methods used in business, finance, and the economy through accounting, finance, and economics.
- Learn the accounting principles required for informed managerial decisions, such as cost terminology, cost behavior, cost systems, activity-based costing, budgeting, cost-volume-profit analysis, cost estimating, variance analysis, and responsibility accounting.
- Develop knowledge of the agents, instruments, and institutions that make up the financial system of the modern economy, such as bonds, the stock market, derivatives, and the money market.
- Develop an understanding of economic principles and methods, such as microeconomic theory, market theory, optimization, bargaining theory, externalities, and how they apply to business and the economy.
- Gain expertise in a focused topic area, such as capital markets and investments, investment banking, valuation, risk management, and nonprofit financial management.
Getting started
No application is required. You simply register for graduate courses during our fall, spring, or summer registration periods.
Earning the Certificate
To meet the requirements for the certificate, you must:
- Complete four certificate courses for graduate credit.
- Earn at least a B grade in each course.
- Complete the courses within three years.
Learn more about pursuing a certificate and the process of requesting your certificate.
Certificate Courses
The professional graduate certificate in Principles of Finance requires four courses:
- Finance course (choose one course from select group)
- Accounting course (choose one course from select group)
- Economics course (choose one course from select group)
- Elective (choose one course from select group)
Courses taken before the 2014–15 academic year do not apply toward this certificate.