Fisher student named Public Company Accounting Oversight Board scholarship recipient

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Fisher School of Accounting student Ashlyn Lowe is the recipient of a 2019-2020 Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) academic scholarship. The scholarship will cover $10,000 worth of tuition, fees, books and supplies.

Lowe is a combined undergraduate and graduate student at the Fisher School. She will start her final year of the program this fall and is set to graduate in the spring of 2020.

“Receiving this scholarship gives me added confidence that I am capable and worthy of jumping headfirst into my accounting career in hopes of fulfilling my goal of having a positive impact and making a difference,” she said.

Lowe is currently completing an internship at Ernst & Young in Atlanta, Georgia. In her internship, she is working with audit teams for well-known Fortune 500 companies, specifically on auditing various reports like 8-Ks and 10-Qs.

“This internship has been such an incredible experience to apply all of the knowledge I have learned these past four years at UF into real-world applications,” she said.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 requires that monetary penalties imposed by the PCAOB in its disciplinary proceedings be used to fund merit scholarships for students in accredited accounting degree programs. The PCAOB scholarship program was established to provide a source of funding to encourage outstanding undergraduate and graduate students to pursue a career in auditing.

The scholarship is merit-based and is available to students who meet the following criteria: students who are enrolled in a bachelor’s or master’s degree program in accounting, demonstrate an interest and aptitude in accounting and demonstrate high ethical standards. Educational institutions are statistically selected to provide student nominations and are encouraged to consider students from populations that have been historically underrepresented in the accounting profession.

The PCAOB is a nonprofit corporation established by Congress to oversee the audits of public companies in order to protect investors and the public interest by promoting informative, accurate and independent audit reports. The PCAOB oversees the audits of brokers and dealers, including compliance reports filed pursuant of federal securities laws, to promote investor protection.