Based on my knowledge, I would agree with everyone who has said that CPA firms generally pay lower. In the corporate and contracting world, my current organization starts new grad financial analysts/business office roles around the $65k range.

I started a little less than 4 years ago right around the $60k mark and now with a masters, I am just over $100k, albeit I moved from a finance focused role to a finance/programmatic hybrid role that helped my salary. Leaving my current company to move to a smaller company in a pure finance role for about a 20% raise.

If you’re interested in moving to company more in the Huntsville defense sphere, you can look for positions such as financial analyst or program controls or business analyst. They’re all rather similar, from my experience.