While I had a rough idea of how much debt I was going to be in, I'd never actually taken the time to sit down and work it out, so I did the math earlier this week. Needless to say, the results were sobering.
Since I'm getting resident tuition at ISU, which is currently at $22,601 for 2016-2017, I just used that number x 4 + half, $11,300.5, for the summer of clinical year. Obviously this does not take inflation into account, and that number is only going to increase. But just for the ease of calculating things, I assumed that number for all four years. That brings my total tuition costs to $101,705. Not too terrible; I think this is still lower-end among all US vet schools, thankfully.
As for living costs... the rent/utilities for my apartment lease is approximately $7,000/yr. Resident students can borrow up to $16,400/yr for living costs (if I'm remembering the numbers from our financial aid presentation correctly). I'm living without an SO or children, I don't currently plan on bringing pets, I have no car payment (it's already paid off), I will have minimal gas costs because my apartment is within miles of the vet school and is along a bus line with free service to ISU students, and I'm used to living on minimum wage. I highly doubt that I'm going to need an additional $9,400/yr to live off of. So, for simplicity's sake, let's say I take out $11,000/yr. Hey, I can always get more later if I really need to, right? That comes out to $44,000 for all four years.
Adding that $44,000 to $101,705, my total COA comes out to $145,705. Not too bad, surprisingly! I believe this is right around, if not below, the current average vet student debtload. Fantastic. As I mentioned earlier, this does not factor in tuition inflation, which will likely bump it up some, but it still looks feasible for me to graduate vet school with no more than $160,000. Could certainly be worse.
But here is the kicker: I have undergrad debt. A pretty decent amount of it, too. This is a gamechanger.
After five years of full-time undergrad and living on campus, I've got $46,000 in debt already. Ouch. So, adding that onto our current estimate... that brings my total debtload for both undergrad and vet school to $191,705. After interest, capitalization, and inflation... it is almost certainly going to be above $200,000.
This is why I emphasize to pre-vets -- both in real life and online -- to really, really consider going to the cheapest undergrad school possible. It does make a difference. If you're not paying for it, then fine, whatever. I only wish that my parents were in the situation to foot the bill, but they weren't, and I was a terrible student in high school so I got very little in scholarships (if you were lucky enough to get out of undergrad with zero debt, please please please realize how fortunate you are). My $46,000 of debt from a small, relatively cheap public state university is going to change my future situation from one that would have been fairly workable provided I managed to find a decent job into one that is considerably less so. The sad part? My undergrad costs could have easily been double that number if it weren't for grants such as Access Missouri and Pell. Had that been the case, I could have approached $250,000-$300,000 in debt with RESIDENT vet school tuition.
This is still much better than those poor souls who will be at schools where they'll be, say, $250,000 in the hole from tuition alone... but it still is very anxiety-inducing. That being said, I know people make it work. I can, too. Doesn't change the fact that it is going to suck the first 10 or so years out of school. The entire debt:salary situation in vet med is absolutely ludicrous. I literally worry about this every single day, and I can only imagine that it doesn't get any better once you're actually in school.
