The initiative is a way of supporting wider access into the accountancy profession. Students will be paid as they study towards the degree while on placement with the firm, effectively mitigating the cost of their university tuition fees.
The four-year BA (Hons) Accounting and Business degree programme has been designed to give students a good business and commercial awareness as well as skills in marketing, law, governance and ethics.
Students will put theory into practice by working within PwC's assurance team on their client projects over three paid, progressive work placements in years 2, 3 and 4 of the programme, providing them with vital employability skills before entering the workplace full time. Tuition fees in these years will be set at 80% of the University's standard undergraduate fee.
Students can expect to earn at least £20,000 over the course of their work placements and successful graduates will be offered a higher starting salary than other graduates joining the firm of up to £35,000 plus benefits, as they will be closer to qualifying as a chartered accountant than their peers from other degree programmes.
David Willetts, the minister for universities and science, said: "I hope this innovative new scheme will prove to be very popular among prospective students. Social mobility is at the heart of the Government's agenda, and providing new routes to the professions is an excellent way of helping people reach their full potential."
Richard Irwin, PwC head of student recruitment, said: "Unlike other employer-led degree programmes on the market, university degree programmes run in partnership with PwC offer the unique combination of students having a traditional university experience while gaining the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales' Associate Chartered Accountant (ACA) qualification. It is a degree designed around a career, targeting motivated, high performing students, who know they want to work in accountancy or business. The mix of theory and practice means that when they join PwC, graduates from this programme will be one year ahead of their peers. We have long believed that employer-led degrees have a critical role in building the skills of students who know what they want out of a career."
Forty places will be offered every year, with the first group of students due to start in September 2012. Applications to the programme open in September 2011, and will require 340 UCAS points from 3 A Levels or equivalent.
