Veterinary student debt rises faster than starting salaries: AVMA

Student educational debt is growing 4.5 times as fast as income for new veterinary graduates, research from the AVMA shows.

The trend isn’t sustainable, Bridgette Bain, the AVMA’s associate director of analytics, said at the association’s Economic Summit in October. “We have to keep our eye on it so we can develop strategies and we can work to counteract this,” she said.

Student debt this year varied by institution. For example, Washington State University and Purdue University both had a decrease of more than 10% in veterinary educational debt, while Mississippi State University and Auburn University had greater than 15% increases.

Debt load also varies by race, Bain said. Black or African American graduates had more debt than their peer graduates, while white or Caucasian students had the lowest amount of debt.

Rise in vet school applications likely a one-time event

Veterinary school applications surged this year, but an official at the Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges warned this likely isn’t the start of a trend.

The Veterinary Medical College Application Service, the centralized application service for most American veterinary schools, saw a 19% jump in applications from the prior year.

“While this year’s numbers are exciting, I view them with a bit of concern about the pool over the next 5 years,” Lisa Greenhill, the AAVMC’s senior director for institutional research and diversity, told fellow NAVC publication Today’s Veterinary Practice. “It is a well-established trend that graduate school applications rise when the economy tanks, and the reasons for economic downturn are largely inconsequential. Overall, graduate school applications jumped over 8% in 2008, the beginning of the last major recession; given the abrupt shift in the U.S. and global economies due to the COVID-19 pandemic, increase[d] applicant numbers were to be expected.”