Congress Funds Veterinary Services Act

November 15, 2005 — 

Congress has provided $500,000 to fund the National Veterinary Services Act to repay veterinary education loans for students agreeing to work in underserved areas of the country.

The Act, signed into law in 2003 but not funded until now, allows eligible students to agree to a period of time and amount of repayment in exchange for practicing in underserved areas such as rural regions and inner cities. In exchange for additional loan repayment, students are encouraged to join a "national guard" of veterinarians established to assist USDA in addressing disease outbreaks, agro-terrorism and other animal or public health emergencies.

This fund extends existing loan repayment programs for human health professionals to the veterinary community and recognizes the need for additional veterinary resources necessary to address animal and public health issues.

[Ed. The AVMA and the Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges (AAVMC) were seeking $1 million to fund the pilot project. It has been estimated that it will cost $20 - 25 million annually to fully fund the program. 87.6% of veterinary graduates have student educational loans to repay. Moreover, the disparity between available salaries, particularly in underserved areas, and school-related debt is worsening for new graduates. In 2003, the mean starting salary for veterinary graduates was $41,602 with a mean loan debt of $76,588. This equates to an average monthly debt repayment of $800 - $900. Between 2002 and 2003, the new veterinary graduate's debt load rose by 5.3% while their average starting salary rose only 3.1%.

This year's appropriation of $500,000 will only support a pilot program in FY'06 funding less than 10 students nationwide. Future funding needs to be expanded in order to accomplish the goal of encouraging students to consider providing much-needed service to rural and inner city areas. I encourage you to contact your congressman and thank him or her for supporting this appropriation and encourage them to support fully funding this program in future years.]

Source: AVMA (http://www.avma.org) and AAVMC (http://www.aavmc.org)