<p>"Today, her debt exceeds her salary by a factor of five — much higher than the recommended twice-starting-salary ratio. She signed up for income-based repayment, a government program available to federal student loan recipients. (A newer program with slightly more generous terms, called Pay As You Earn, or PAYE, is available to more recent graduates.) "</p>
<p>"What Dr. Wilson learned long ago is that it is hard to talk anyone out of vet school. Many students, like Dr. Schafer, set their hearts on the job at an early age. If you are doing what you have always wanted, and you find it fulfilling, the numbers don’t seem relevant. At least initially. "</p>
<p>Yep. My friend’s DD could not find work that paid a living wage. She’s back in schools studying to get certification in working with prosthetics, a field where getting a high paying job is possible. Fortunately for her, her loans are manageable, though barely as she did not take any out for UG and parents helped her out for vet school.</p>
<p>Good article for anyone considering taking on substantial educational debt for any degree. I wouldn’t be surprised to see similar articles about M.D 's I. The not too distant future.</p>
<p>I know someone who received a degree in veterinary medicine. He couldn’t find a job for 2 years after graduating. He has well over $150K in student loans. He finally found a job 600 miles away in a rural area, but it doesn’t pay well. Not sure how he’s ever going to dig himself out of that hole.</p>
<p>In this article, Dr. Schafer currently has $312K in student loans and her debt will hit $650K in 25 years according to a financial analyst. Almost too hard to believe.</p>
<p>This was posted in an MD forum, entitled “next time you hear doctors complaining”. I kept reading because the school was in St. Kitts, a teeny tiny Island in the Caribbean, near one my mother is from. I can’t imagine a professional school there.</p>
<p>Wow, I never knew about such problems for veterinarians. When my daughter was preparing for a dental school admission. Her aunt and uncle kept telling my daughter to go to a dental vet school instead, because they thought veterinarians make a lot of money. Their impression was based on the huge amount of vet bills for their dog. I am glad that my daughter is in dental school (at least until someone writes an article for a similar dire situation for dentists).</p>
<p>It depends like most starting careers where you want to live. A vet friend five years ago told me our ‘area’ could sustain 3 more vets. Since then there are now 5 more vets and it’s a struggle for the “last one in.”</p>
<p>This is all news to me. My D starting college this year to become a vet. I did do some research and i know theres only 28 vet schools in the country, and from what I’ve heard very hard to get into. But i didn’t think it would be that hard to find a job when you graduated or that its starting pay was that low. My D has always wanted to be a vet since elementary school, she has never detered from that, in highschool she took oceanography, zoology, all her AB courses in HS have been geared for vet. her major is animal Bio and pre vet. How do i try to convince her to change her major? or with the classes she is going to take what other career could she get into? I also heard its easier to become a MD because there is only one human body compared to 1000’s different animals you’d have to learn about. and I’m sure MD make more money. I just wont be able to convince D to give up her dream even though it might be a very costly mistake. Has anyone seen any other articles about being a vet, like what vet field is in higher demand or a particular state that pay more…ect…I need a little hope…lol</p>
<p>Hey, It’s the New York Times. They would have discouraged every career by now if we didn’t go beyond them. That being said, there are other sources with a similar, but not as extreme perspective</p>
<p>“In the meantime, the question … Is there truly a shortage of veterinarians in the United States? Some groups say yes, including U.S. veterinary schools,…, new veterinary schools have been created in the United States and foreign …Other groups say no, there is no shortage, including the American Association of Bovine Practitioners (AABP). ?.. issued a report in 2011 stating that parts of rural America are underserved by veterinarians not because of a shortage of willing practitioners but because it simply isn’t possible for large animal veterinarians to make a viable living in these areas”.</p>
<p>And</p>
<p>“unfilled positions in some sectors of veterinary medicine.These sectors include industry and scientific research, which require advanced training, and the public sector (epidemiology, food safety, wildlife and ecosystem health and public health), where salaries are lower than average and recruitment efforts fail to reach veterinarians who might be looking for jobs.”</p>
<p>Our neighbor is a vetinary pathologist, married to a pediatric infectious disease doc. She works for a mortgage company to supplement her income. They just bought a 2nd home that is 7 figures, so one of them must have come into or be making some money.</p>
<p>Probably time to start looking at emigration options, if that appeals. Being a qualified vet will get you into many countries on a skilled migrant visa. It looks like Australia would be one option [Veterinarian</a> - 234711](<a href=“Department of Home Affairs Website”>Department of Home Affairs)</p>
<p>I know three very recent vet school graduates. All were gainfully employed very quickly. Two went to US vet schools, the other went to Ross. I have no idea how much debt they are carrying and don’t know their salary, but haven’t heard a negative word from any of them. I do know that all three started out with equine as their focus, and all three ended up doing small animal instead.</p>
<p>Our current small animal vet graduated from Ross. She is one of the best vets I have ever encountered. She is very intelligent, perceptive and compassionate. She will give you all of the options and explain them clearly. She does not push any type of diagnostic tests or lab work or vaccines if she does not feel it will truly be necessary or beneficial. She explains what is available and what it might or might not tell. And she is the least expensive vet in our area - by far. She has recently put a large addition on her clinic and hired at least 2 more vets (if not 3). Her practice grew by leaps and bounds because she is so good and affordable.</p>
<p>In <em>1986</em> I spoke with the dean of Tennessee who told me, at that time, they were having trouble finding qualified applicants for the vet school because they were competing within the pool of kids that could get a BS in chem engineering, graduate and make $50K (and similar technical fields). The vet school was offering those kids a chance to spend 4 more years in school, graduate, and make $20K (or $12.5K for dairy vet grads in Wisconsin). </p>
<p>Of course the ones that chose the vet school path were pretty dedicated to being a vet.</p>
<p>I am a small animal vet and the article raises some excellent points. The debt load from vet school is staggering, the market for jobs is tough, and nooooo, we don’t necessarily near what our human counterparts make. Certainly, some specialists do but that market is going to be very rough in the upcoming years since so many young doctors are going onto specialist and there isn’t a huge market, for example, of people who are willing to pay $2000 for a cruciate repair or $3000 for chemo. Here are some stats (source: JAVMA journal spring 2011) from a presentation I gave to a high school class in spring 2011:</p>
<p>Average pay for an experienced DVM: $110,000
Average starting salary for a DVM: $46,971
Average debt after vet school: $142,613 which translate into a monthly loan payment at 6% for 10 years: $1200/month
Average US house payment is $1600 (source…googled this stat)</p>
<p>Things are going to get worse in terms of income in the upcoming years, I believe due to the changing markets. Even though I love my job and my clients, I suspect I will be glad to retire in about 10 years…</p>
<p>It was very helpful to hear from someone who is currently employed as a vet. Thanks for posting.</p>
<p>I think a lot of kids fall in love with the idea of being a vet due to their love of animals. It definitely takes a great deal of commitment to make it all the way through vet school. I think one must have a real passion to be a vet and realize that you’re not going to get rich doing it. And you may incur crippling student debt that could impact your financial well being for many years to come.</p>
<p>Several years ago, when I was still a Girl Scout leader, the girls in my troop visited a vet clinic to interview one of the vets about her job. She told us that although she loved her profession, she would never recommend it to others precisely because of the job opportunities (often scarce) and because of the debt load. When she told the troop what her student loan payments were, one of the girls gasped. (“That much EVERY MONTH?”)</p>
<p>The comments on the NYT article were interesting. At least one person had the same plan as the young lady in the article and was going to Ross and taking on the same type of debt load. I believe he was 28. Reminds me of the posts on CC where a kid wants to take out 200K in loans to go to the “dream school.”</p>
<p>As a medical student in an MD medical school I often wondered how vets could do their job. I was spending every waking hour trying to learn the anatomy, physiology and pathology of one species and I could not imagine trying to do it for patients representing a wide range of species, for all of whome an H&P (history and physical) is unlikely to elicit much useful information. Medical school was expensive, although cheap by today’s standards, but you could look forward to earning a fairly comfortable living.</p>