There is understandably a lot of comparison and confusion between different financial qualifications. CFA vs CPA is no exception – they even sound similar! We have had chartered accountants share their CFA experiences before, but in this article we will specifically compare the CPA and CFA charter in all aspects: career paths, exam formats, exam …
Should you take the CFA exams? What are the benefits of CFA program? Each year, hundreds of thousands of professionals ponder about this. Here’s a straight-to-the-point, frank list of reasons why a CFA designation could be useful to you (even at Level 1), compiled by us here at 300Hours (we are charterholders, by the way). …
Aside from the time commitment, there is a considerable cost to pursuing the CFA charter, especially for students. Level 1 enrollment and registration fees alone can be as high as $1,600, not including any third-party materials you might need. Luckily, there are a variety of CFA scholarships available for candidates, allowing you to reduce the enrollment and signup …
Did you know that besides the CFA program, CFA Institute also offers CFA Investment Foundations program? Many potential candidates get confused between the two qualifications, so we thought it may be helpful to put together a proper comparison guide to help you decide between CFA Investment Foundations vs CFA Program. Let’s dive in! What is …
Note: this cheat sheet is updated for the latest 2026 curriculum. Regardless whether you’ve a background in finance or economics, Economics is a central topic across all 3 levels of the CFA exams that requires some focus to master, especially the exchange rate section! Building a strong foundation in CFA Level 1 Economics is essential …
Level 1 Topic Order • Level 2 Topic Order • Level 3 Topic Order There are 93 Learning Modules (LMs) in CFA Level 1’s 2026 curriculum across 10 topics. But should you study the topics in sequence? Or is there an optimal CFA Level 1 study order? It’s one of the popular questions we get in the 300Hours Forum (which, …
Will your salary increase as you go through the CFA Program?Yes, it does. In fact, you don’t even have to wait until you become a CFA charterholder. Proper, reliable CFA salary data are hard to come by, so we started our own years ago to help our readers. The key differentiator of our CFA salary …
I was feeling really poor back when I was attempting CFA Level 2. I had just been let go in my finance role and I wanted to switch careers into advertising, yet still continue pursuing the CFA charter as a safeguard just in case my career switch was a misguided detour. My previous finance employer …
Did you know that 45% of CFA candidates pursue the charter for career-related reasons? But what are the typical Chartered Financial Analysts’ (CFA) careers? What can you do with a CFA charter? It is crucial to understand the potential job opportunities and flexibility that a CFA designation offers, and this applies regardless if you’re: And …
If you currently or aspire to work in finance, and have evaluated if MBA is worth it to you, a natural follow up comparison question could be: CFA vs MBA which is better for me? Like most comparisons, the answer is – it depends. Firstly, it’s not straightforward to compare a CFA charter and an MBA …