The Fisher School of Accounting is the accounting school at the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

History

In 1977, the School of Accounting was established by the

Florida Board of Regents The Florida Board of Regents was from 1965 to 2001 the governing body for the State University System of Florida, which includes all public universities in the state of Florida, United States. It was created to replace a predecessor body called ...

as a separate school within the

Warrington College of Business The Warrington College of Business is the business school of the University of Florida. About 6,300 students are enrolled in classes, including undergraduates and graduate students, including Master of Business Administration and Ph.D.-seeking s ...

, and was endowed in 1985 by Frederick Fisher. Dr. John Simmons was the founding Director of the Fisher School. The School first conferred degrees in accounting in December 1978 although accounting has existed as a program in some form since 1928.

Rankings

According to the 2024 US News Rankings, The Fisher School of Accounting's undergraduate and graduate accounting programs were ranked 6th among public universities. The School founded the ''Journal of Accounting Literature'' with Rashad Abdel-khalik and is home to the ''International Accounting and Auditing Center''. Fisher School of Accounting graduates' pass rate on the

Certified Public Accountant Certified Public Accountant (CPA) is the title of qualified accountants in numerous countries in the English-speaking world. It is generally equivalent to the title of chartered accountant in other English-speaking countries. In the United Sta ...

(CPA) exam has been traditionally nearly twice as high as the national average. In 2019, The Fisher School held an overall passing rate of 86.4% on all four parts of the CPA exam, ranking them 6th in the nation out of 264 institutions for overall passing rate.

Program

The undergraduate Fisher School of Accounting offers a traditional

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

Accounting Accounting, also known as accountancy, is the measurement, processing, and communication of financial and non financial information about economic entities such as businesses and corporations. Accounting, which has been called the "languag ...

. The graduate school offers a Master of Accounting with concentrations in

Auditing An audit is an "independent examination of financial information of any entity, whether profit oriented or not, irrespective of its size or legal form when such an examination is conducted with a view to express an opinion thereon.” Auditing ...

and

Taxation A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal person, legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regiona ...

for students seeking careers as

Certified Public Accountants Certified Public Accountant (CPA) is the title of qualified accountants in numerous countries in the English-speaking world. It is generally equivalent to the title of chartered accountant in other English-speaking countries. In the United Sta ...

. The completion of the master's degree fulfills the State of Florida's requirements to take the CPA exam. The school offers two combined-degree programs: one leads to the joint awarding of a Bachelor of Science in Accounting and a Master of Accounting, whereas the second partners with the

Levin College of Law The University of Florida Fredric G. Levin College of Law (UF Law) is the law school of the University of Florida located in Gainesville, Florida. Founded in 1909, it is the oldest operating public law school in Florida, and second oldest overall ...

and offers a

Juris Doctor The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice law ...

(J.D.) degree along with a Master of Accounting. Additionally, the Fisher School offers a Ph.D program in Accounting to prepare students for a career at academic research institutions. Graduates typically place at a

Research I university This is a list of universities in the United States classified as research universities in the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. Research institutions are a subset of doctoral degree-granting institutions and conduct rese ...

. The most recent placements include

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory. T ...

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...

University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut, a village in the town of Mansfield. The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2) campus is in Storrs, approximately a half hour's drive from Hart ...

Arizona State University Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public research university in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, ASU is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the ...

, and

The University of Kentucky The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a public land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky, the university is one of the state's ...

, with international placements including

The Chinese University of Hong Kong The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) is a public research university in Ma Liu Shui, Hong Kong, formally established in 1963 by a charter granted by the Legislative Council of Hong Kong. It is the territory's second-oldest university and ...

Hanyang University Hanyang University (Korean: 한양대학교) is a private research university in South Korea. The main campus is located in Seoul and its satellite campus, the Education Research Industry Cluster (ERICA campus), is in Ansan. ''Hanyang'' (한양, ...

, and The University of Waterloo.

Students

The Fisher School of Accounting has approximately 449 undergraduate, 157 MAcc students, and 10 PhD students as of Fall 2023.

Student Outcomes

The majority of undergraduate students graduating from The Fisher School choose to pursue a graduate accounting degree in lieu of working full-time. The Master of Accounting program has boasted a near perfect employment record of 97.5% to 100% of its domestic students since the university began tracking employment outcomes in 2015, with over 80% of the graduating cohort accepting offers from

Big Four accounting firms The Big Four are the four largest professional services networks in the world, the global accounting networks Deloitte, Ernst & Young (EY), KPMG, and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). The four are often grouped because they are comparable in size re ...

each year. The most common places of employment are based in the

South Florida South Florida is the southernmost region of the U.S. state of Florida. It is one of Florida's three most commonly referred to directional regions; the other two are Central Florida and North Florida. South Florida is the southernmost part of th ...

region and the cities of

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...

Tampa Tampa () is a city on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The city's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and the seat of Hillsborough County ...

Orlando Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures rele ...

, and

Jacksonville Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeast Florida, the most populous city proper in the state and is the List of United States cities by area, largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the co ...

Faculty

Gary McGill
/ref> is the current and longest serving Director of the Fisher School of Accounting. Mr. John Laibson is the Director of Student Services. Other current faculty include Robert Knechel, Distinguished Professor and the Frederick E. Fisher Eminent Scholar, Stephen Asare, Jenny Tucker, Marcus Kirk, Paul Madsen, Michael Mayberry, Lisa Hinson, Michael Ricci, Bobby Carnes, Ruby Lee, Scott Rane, Dan Rimkus, Gabriel Pereira Pundrich, Ivy Munoko, Jill Goslinga, Chris Falk, Sonia Singh, Cindy Dosch, Joost Impink, Michael Schadewald, Don Monk, and Paige Bressler. Emeritus faculty include John Simmons, Joel Demski, Doug Snowball, Rashad Abdel-Khalik, Jack Kramer, Sandra Kramer, Bipin Ajinkya, Chuck McDonald, Dominique DeSantiago, Debbie Garvin, and Jesse Boyles.

References

External links

Official WebsiteCurrent FacultyRankingsCPA Exam PerformanceInternational Accounting and Auditing CenterRecent Research
{{authority control Accounting schools in the United States Colleges of the University of Florida Educational institutions established in 1977 1977 establishments in Florida