Invest in your future with the online Finance Graduate Certificate from Kelley Executive Education Programs. You’ll develop your financial expertise and employ analytical conventions used in corporate finance—all in a convenient online format.
The finance certificate program is fully online and is completed over the course of 12 months. The program consists of four courses taught sequentially, one course per academic term. You can begin the program in either the fall or the spring term.
Fall 2025 term application deadline: June 15
Program start date: August 18
online courses
credit hours
total tuition
Do you have questions about our Finance Graduate Certificate? Register for one of our upcoming Zoom info sessions to connect with our admissions team and faculty chair.
August 18 to November 6
Application deadline: June 15
February 23 to May 14
Application deadline: December 1
The Kelley School of Business is one of the top-ranked business schools in the country. The course content offers the scope and depth of knowledge and expertise found in any Kelley School of Business classroom.
This certificate is designed for early career to senior-level professionals who want to gain a deeper understanding of the financial challenges facing organizations. Each course provides students with marketable skills, expanding your expertise in financial management, managing accounting information for decision-making, asset pricing and security valuation, and valuation and capital investment.
Of your four required courses, your first will provide an overview of financial theory and analytical reasoning. The remaining three courses will each focus on one of the components listed above.
In this course, students will develop a working knowledge of the tools and analytical conventions used in the practice of corporate finance. They will gain an understanding of the basic elements of financial theory used in the application of analytical reasoning to solve business problems, and they will explore the interrelationships among corporate policies and decisions.
In this course, students will gain a user-oriented understanding of how accounting information should be managed to ensure its availability on a timely and relevant basis for decision-making. The first part of the course reviews financial accounting and reporting while the second part of the course focuses on cost-benefit analysis for evaluating the potential value-added results from planning, organizing, and controlling a firm’s accounting information.
This course focuses on valuation in capital markets by evaluating the risk and return of various financial assets using quantitative methods. This includes the concepts and application of topics regarding portfolio theory, general asset pricing, bond pricing, and derivatives. The unifying theme of this course is that equivalent financial assets will sell at identical prices, driven by arbitrage activity, where investors try to earn riskless profits. BUEX-F500 is a prerequisite for this course.
This course is an in-depth review of valuation and capital investments and requires BUEX-F500 as a prerequisite. Some of the primary objectives are to develop an understanding of why value creation is a critical factor in the continued existence of an organization, how value is measured, the strategic and operating activities that contribute to the creation of value, and how management incentives can be aligned with value creation to reduce potential governance issues. Specifically, the course will cover:
Fill out this online application first.
After you complete the Kelley application, you’ll receive an email with instructions on how to apply through the Graduate CAS Application. During this stage, you will upload the following materials to complete your application:
Our admissions team is here to help you navigate the admissions process. Contact Kelley Executive Education Programs directly to start the conversation at keep@iu.edu.
Your Finance Graduate Certificate will:
Apply for the Finance Graduate Certificate and the online MS in Finance at the same time and receive your graduate certificate after successfully passing the designated certificate courses. Once you pass all 10 courses, you'll achieve a Master of Science in Finance from the Indiana University Kelley School of Business—the same degree students studying on the IU campus receive.
Below you’ll find the answers to the questions prospective students ask us about the Finance Graduate Certificate program. If you need further assistance or can't find what you're looking for, please feel free to reach out to us at keep@iu.edu or give us a call at 812-856-5366. We're here to help!
Students who complete this certificate program will:
We conceptualized this program as a career enhancer, more than a tool for career transition. Undoubtedly, this program will deepen and widen your skill set and increase your marketability. However, we would encourage you to seek out informational interviews with individuals in your desired job to identify all the variables that will go into a prospective employer’s assessment of your viability for such a position.
No. If you’re unsure about furthering your education with an MS degree, earning a professional graduate certificate is a low-risk way for you to explore a field of business and then decide if you want to continue developing your expertise in that area. This online finance certificate is fully stackable into the Kelley School’s online MS in Finance degree, offering a flexible steppingstone for students interested in continuing their education with a master’s degree program.