Estimated Costs of Veterinary School

Veterinary Science Graduate Certificate from UofI
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Interesting question, it was briefly covered a few pages back...
One of my bosses recently asked me "Exactly how much money are you willing to spend to become a vet?"
As in, is there some magic number to be reached where the cost of school is no longer worth becoming a DVM? And when reached, would you call it quits and find something more lucrative? This is really relevant because in our area, we have a veterinarian practicing with the highest amount of debt out of school in the country. Also knew an SGU student who almost didn't go back after break because finding a loan was nearly impossible (ended up being something like 20% interest..ouch).


I'm not sure I could place a number on it because I want it so badly, but at the same time I don't want to be sucked into the Concord Fallacy, i.e. "Well I already have x amount of money invested so I might as well keep going"
I think there definitely comes a point where you have to accept that you may never get your loans paid off....

Anyway, it's been bouncing around my brain lately...any thoughts?
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TooLove said:
I'm not sure I could place a number on it because I want it so badly, but at the same time I don't want to be sucked into the Concord Fallacy, i.e. "Well I already have x amount of money invested so I might as well keep going"
I think there definitely comes a point where you have to accept that you may never get your loans paid off....

Anyway, it's been bouncing around my brain lately...any thoughts?
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In trading we call that throwing good money after bad.....

Of more succinctly, when your boss screams in your face.. .
"CUT YOUR F***ING LOSSES NOW".
 
Haha! Easier said than done though...
 
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Psittacidae said:
Thanks Trilt! And yes I will have enough savings to cover my COL for the four years by the time I start, if all goes as planned. :) I may have to finance all of Vet school ( based on my math about 60-65k ), but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. I'm also hoping to work part time during school, but I guess I'll have to work that out once I get there too.
It's nice to hear from someone who got in to their IS ( especially NC!! ) with only one application. I have very diverse animal/veterinary experience and strong grades, so hopefully I'm a strong enough applicant to do the same! Thanks for the input.
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I'm at NCSU. If I took out the standard loans for my 4 years, I would graduate with $139,000. Since I have my final loan acceptance, I am sure of that number. Additionally, we have been experiencing tuition hikes each year, at least one year was a low double digit. Still a pretty cheap school, though.
 
THANK YOU! THat was one of the best put together expense file I ahve seen. It is very helpful to many and your effort and time is well appreciated.

:clap::highfive::soexcited:

Thank you
 
Hi all,

I just wanted to put up an updated link that can help with the information how much vet schools cost as well as average DVM salaries in the states.


Link


Let me know if this helps.
 
jdabbracciodvm said:
Hi all,

I just wanted to put up an updated link that can help with the information how much vet schools cost as well as average DVM salaries in the states.


Link


Let me know if this helps.
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I couldn't look at the site. I'm thinking it's bc I don't have a Vin account. :( womp womp
 
Does anyone know of a current and reliable resource regarding veterinary unemployment rates? Especially broken down by field, graduation year, completion of internships & residencies?
 
justavet said:
Resident or non-resident, NStarz? Yes, the figures for all four schools reflect instate residency after the first year.
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Justavet, I'm sorry to add more to your burden of questions, but do you happen to have a list of all of the US vet schools that allow you to re-classify as IS after a year or whatever it may be? I apologize if you've already answered this question- I tried to look through the thread but didn't see anything and easily could have missed it.
Thank you so much for all you've done!
 
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christiansenle said:
Justavet, I'm sorry to add more to your burden of questions, but do you happen to have a list of all of the US vet schools that allow you to re-classify as IS after a year or whatever it may be? I apologize if you've already answered this question- I tried to look through the thread but didn't see anything and easily could have missed it.
Thank you so much for all you've done!
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If you look down at the bottom of the spread sheet it will tell you which ones she's taken into account switching to in state tuition.
 
Luckily for me, my bus driver said if he wins the lotto he'll pay for me to go to vet school! Here's to hoping! :laugh:
 
I was just wondering if anyone knows what most vet schools policies are on IS vs Os. Specifically, I have heard that if you apply as an OS student that you are stuck at that rate for the entire four years? True or False?

Also if anyone knows any special rates for Military? I know about the MSRA and I know of the Western States Exchange program thing but it looks like there aren't too many spots available for that :(
 
kenggy said:
I was just wondering if anyone knows what most vet schools policies are on IS vs Os. Specifically, I have heard that if you apply as an OS student that you are stuck at that rate for the entire four years? True or False?
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Some OOS schools will make you pay the the OOS tuition rate all four years. For example, Kansas State makes you sign a contract that says you agree to pay that rate for your entire time at vet school. Other schools you are able to get the IS rate after one year (I think Ohio State is like that).

If you look at the websites of the vet schools you are interested in it should say if an OOS student can ever get the IS rate since it is a question they get frequently.
 
kenggy said:
I was just wondering if anyone knows what most vet schools policies are on IS vs Os. Specifically, I have heard that if you apply as an OS student that you are stuck at that rate for the entire four years? True or False?

Also if anyone knows any special rates for Military? I know about the MSRA and I know of the Western States Exchange program thing but it looks like there aren't too many spots available for that :(
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Ohio State, Missouri, NC State, and UC Davis make it relatively easy to change to IS tuition after first year. Other states have exceptions for marriage, husbands coming with you and getting a full time job w/ benefits, etc.
 
wildcatj said:
Other states have exceptions for marriage, husbands coming with you and getting a full time job w/ benefits, etc.
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wildcatj, can you tell me which school this is? I haven't been able to find a case where this actually happens. Mostly I find policies that state they will consider you a non resident for tuition purposes if you came to the state to go to school, regardless of what happens once you get there.
 
justavet said:
wildcatj, can you tell me which school this is? I haven't been able to find a case where this actually happens. Mostly I find policies that state they will consider you a non resident for tuition purposes if you came to the state to go to school, regardless of what happens once you get there.
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I know at University of Missouri for instance if your husband/wife moves out with you and gets a full time job w/ benefits that you automatically qualify for in state tuition. We had a thread a while back about gaining in state tuition after you started. If I remember correctly, someone called several schools and some said if you got married while in school you could get IS tuition, but that was the only way. Let me see if I can find it... Eh, that person didn't ask about the marriage thing and you commented on that thread last time it was up and running. According to some people certain schools would let you switch if you got married to a resident. I'm not sure if that's from first hand experience or hear-say or what. Here's the link to the thread just in case you want to look again:
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=595361&highlight=Tuition&page=1
 
justavet said:
wildcatj, can you tell me which school this is? I haven't been able to find a case where this actually happens. Mostly I find policies that state they will consider you a non resident for tuition purposes if you came to the state to go to school, regardless of what happens once you get there.
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At OK, you can gain in-state tuition by marrying a state resident. A friend just went through the process and it was surprisingly straight-forward on the school's end.
 
someone called several schools
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That's where it breaks down for me- I'm not comfortable publishing it if it's just what somebody gets told on the phone. I'll take hearsay, but only hearsay of something that actually happened :) like cowgirla and twelvetigers saying they know people who have gotten IS tuition by marrying a resident at OKL.
 
justavet said:
That's where it breaks down for me- I'm not comfortable publishing it if it's just what somebody gets told on the phone. I'll take hearsay, but only hearsay of something that actually happened :) like cowgirla and twelvetigers saying they know people who have gotten IS tuition by marrying a resident at OKL.
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I completely understand that, especially with you being so thorough.
 
justavet said:
That's where it breaks down for me- I'm not comfortable publishing it if it's just what somebody gets told on the phone. I'll take hearsay, but only hearsay of something that actually happened :) like cowgirla and twelvetigers saying they know people who have gotten IS tuition by marrying a resident at OKL.
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The girl who just got married to a state resident is actually a member of this forum. I'll send her this way to hopefully provide some more detail :)
 
justavet said:
Do you mean the SO who's trying to become a resident can't attend school more than part time during that year- or the student can't attend school more than part time during the year the SO is establishing residency?
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The SO - the person trying to get residency. It may not even be relevant, but the person I know that got residency was doing it for herself and had to work fulltime while taking a few classes here and there.
 
I just married a resident in december and OK state immediately got me in state status and tuition for this semester. It was super simple I just had to give them a copy of my marriage certificate and something to prove that he was a resident. If you wanted to get residency on your own, the only way to do it is to come to OK, work full time for a year, and take 5 (I think) credit hours or fewer. So basically, if you're applying for vet school as an OS student, find a man fast :p
 
Aren't student loans absolved when you die? In the face of all this money, and considering my undergrad degree is gonna cost me ~$80k, I might just pay the bare minimum my entire life.
 
Boidae said:
Aren't student loans absolved when you die? In the face of all this money, and considering my undergrad degree is gonna cost me ~$80k, I might just pay the bare minimum my entire life.
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Unless you're already 70 or 80 years old that won't work on the normal 10-year plan. You could get the 30-year extended plan? It might just be easier to permanently disable yourself though. At least you'll be alive (sort of)! :-J
 
2CatMatt said:
Unless you're already 70 or 80 years old that won't work on the normal 10-year plan. You could get the 30-year extended plan? It might just be easier to permanently disable yourself though. At least you'll be alive (sort of)! :-J
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I'm starting to consider it... it's a much more viable option than what the math is telling me.
 
Boidae said:
Aren't student loans absolved when you die? In the face of all this money, and considering my undergrad degree is gonna cost me ~$80k, I might just pay the bare minimum my entire life.
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You might be better off doing your undergrad through a SUNY or CUNY school and saving yourself a crap-ton of money. 80K is a lot of money, especially for an undergrad degree. And then vet school loans on top of that? :eek:
 
Boidae said:
Aren't student loans absolved when you die? In the face of all this money, and considering my undergrad degree is gonna cost me ~$80k, I might just pay the bare minimum my entire life.
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Oh god that makes me want to barf. So glad I went to my state's uni and lived at home. I've only got $16k from undergrad.
 
wildcatj said:
Oh god that makes me want to barf. So glad I went to my state's uni and lived at home. I've only got $16k from undergrad.
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Sheesh me too. I can't imagine having that much debt going into vet school. OP, is $80,000 really worth it?!? I also went to a state school and was accepted to my top choice vet school with zero debt to my name. Without a debt burden I feel comfortable taking out the loans for vet school. If I had $80,000 worth of student loans already, I would definitely have to think long and hard on vet school.
 
Meh, I'm mostly going because I'll also graduate with a veterinary technology degree. Useless if I become a vet but I don't want to set myself up for failure in the event that circumstances change and I can't go beyond my B.S.

SUNY Albany is about half an hour from me and quite honestly, I'm sick of dealing with the insane traffic and huge classes. Mercy is extremely small and in a quiet suburb. I can focus much better. The Bronx Zoo offers internships, there's a ton of vet offices around looking to take on volunteers... I don't know, I think the opportunities there will be worth the money.

I can either be up to my eyeballs in debt and know I'm graduating with the perfect degree or save money and lose the opportunities/second degree. If I have a hard time getting into vet school for whatever reason, at least I have a marketable degree. I like a safety net. :)
 
Does anyone have any stats on how many graduates are able to obtain one of the loan repayment plans (like the ones through the NIH, etc)? I know they can be difficult to qualify for, but I haven't seen any data about how many people are able to do this.
 
Out of curiosity, I took the excel data from the VIN map and added some columns to calculate average monthly repayment for each school's tuition and fees.

It's just a quick addition...if you take a look at it, please double-check my formulas. I decided to go with one scenario, the 10-year paydown, and only two types of loans, stafford and grad plus. If any of my assumptions are wrong, please correct me. I believe one can get $40,500/yr in unsubsidized stafford loans, and cover the rest with grad plus loans, yes?

I decided to only use these loans, because it's uncertain until you get an aid package how much you may get in health professions or other types of aid. I also decided to ignore cost of living, because each school calculates theirs a little differently, and it's very variable how much people actually spend to live. To keep it simple, I assumed the student paid interest off as it accrued during school, so that no interest was added to the principle upon graduation. I also assume that loan payments are made at the end of each period.

Helps put those big tuition numbers in a format I can relate to.

EDIT: Found two errors in line 2 for Auburn's numbers. Fixed the formulas and reuploaded the corrected version. Please check that the formulas in all the payment boxes are the same.

EDIT 2: Found an error in calculating GradPLUS debt. Also accounted for 4% GradPLUS origination fee.

EDIT 3: Changed origination fees. Yay sequester

EDIT 4: Uploaded new version in a later post.
 
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Wow. I bow down to your formula making skills. Very impressive and far over my ability to tell if they are accurate or where an error may lie.

I was playing around with the Cornell In-State data though (only changing the in-state tuition cell, F4) and at a debt of $160,000 it says the monthly payments would be $1859 but if the debt is increased just $5,000 to $165,000 the monthly payment shoots up to $3911. Do you think this is correct?
 
felinelvr44 said:
Wow. I bow down to your formula making skills. Very impressive and far over my ability to tell if they are accurate or where an error may lie.

I was playing around with the Cornell In-State data though (only changing the in-state tuition cell, F4) and at a debt of $160,000 it says the monthly payments would be $1859 but if the debt is increased just $5,000 to $165,000 the monthly payment shoots up to $3911. Do you think this is correct?
Click to expand...
hygebeorht, where did you get those sheets/numbers?
 
hygebeorht said:
Out of curiosity, I took the excel data from the VIN map and added some columns to calculate average monthly repayment for each school's tuition and fees.

It's just a quick addition...if you take a look at it, please double-check my formulas. I decided to go with one scenario, the 10-year paydown, and only two types of loans, stafford and grad plus. If any of my assumptions are wrong, please correct me. I believe one can get $40,500/yr in unsubsidized stafford loans, and cover the rest with grad plus loans, yes?

I decided to only use these loans, because it's uncertain until you get an aid package how much you may get in health professions or other types of aid. I also decided to ignore cost of living, because each school calculates theirs a little differently, and it's very variable how much people actually spend to live. To keep it simple, I assumed the student paid interest off as it accrued during school, so that no interest was added to the principle upon graduation. I also assume that loan payments are made at the end of each period.

Helps put those big tuition numbers in a format I can relate to.
Click to expand...

That's awesome. So if I'm looking at this correctly. You calculated out the monthly payment for paying off the loan in 10 years? Just wondering if this is assuming you are paying interest while you are in school or if it's compounding during those 4 years. I know that's a ton of math and figuring out formulas, but I'm just curious to know if that's taken into account.
 
felinelvr44 said:
Wow. I bow down to your formula making skills. Very impressive and far over my ability to tell if they are accurate or where an error may lie.

I was playing around with the Cornell In-State data though (only changing the in-state tuition cell, F4) and at a debt of $160,000 it says the monthly payments would be $1859 but if the debt is increased just $5,000 to $165,000 the monthly payment shoots up to $3911. Do you think this is correct?
Click to expand...

Thanks :) It took me a little while to figure out what I was trying to do.

Hm, let me play with the spreadsheet a little to check out what you're seeing. I told the program to take approx. the first 160,000 (40500*4) of debt and treat it as 6.8% Stafford loans, and to take the amount above that and treat it as 7.9% Grad PLUS loans, so it makes sense that things jump suddenly at that cutoff. My formulas also account for the 1% origination fee for each. If Grad PLUS loans don't have a 1% origination fee, then my numbers may be a bit screwy.

Comparing what the worksheet calculated to what I got from online debt calculators, it seems to be reasonably accurate - within a few dollars. Please do keep poking at it to see if you find any problems :)

justavet said:
hygebeorht, where did you get those sheets/numbers?
Click to expand...

Downloaded from here. Isn't the data they used yours? Very thorough, well done! I hope you don't mind that I used that data.

orcagirl said:
That's awesome. So if I'm looking at this correctly. You calculated out the monthly payment for paying off the loan in 10 years? Just wondering if this is assuming you are paying interest while you are in school or if it's compounding during those 4 years. I know that's a ton of math and figuring out formulas, but I'm just curious to know if that's taken into account.
Click to expand...

I decided to keep things simple and did not account for interest accrued during school, assuming that the student would be paying it off and so emerge from school without any interest to compound to the principle. So the quick answer is that no, it does not take interest during school into account. It would not be hard to tweak it so that it did, but I plan to pay interest as I go so I start repayment with principle only. Knock wood of course.
 
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felinelvr44 said:
Wow. I bow down to your formula making skills. Very impressive and far over my ability to tell if they are accurate or where an error may lie.

I was playing around with the Cornell In-State data though (only changing the in-state tuition cell, F4) and at a debt of $160,000 it says the monthly payments would be $1859 but if the debt is increased just $5,000 to $165,000 the monthly payment shoots up to $3911. Do you think this is correct?
Click to expand...

Hey felinelvr44, thanks for troubleshooting. I found that I had a big ol' error in the part where I calculate GradPLUS debt, so the repayment numbers should look more reasonable if you redownload and take another look.

Also, it turns out GradPLUS has a 4% orig. fee, not 1% like Stafford, so I changed the formula to reflect that as well.
 
Wouldn't it be more cost effective overall to take only the amount you need, not that extra thousand here or 500 there, and forget creative financing, such as paying off interest accrued during school? It seems that for all too many, the temptation to squander loan money would be ripe for the spending. On the flipside, if you take only what you absolutely need, there's a good chance you'll fight to remain above water and within your budget, as there will be no other viable options to tap into. However, to have an extra thousand or two or or more of monies borrowed from the government, to 'play' with, or have as a false cushion, isn't as financially savvy as loan funds turned away. After all, you won't have to pay back anything you don't borrow. The days of taking a low interest loan, investing that money which materializes as a smart investment is long gone. Why not scrap the creative financing,take what you absolutely need, not a dollar more, and start paying it back 6 months after you graduate?
 
hygebeorht,

How did you learn to do such excel magic? ...your spreadsheet makes me want to enroll in an excel class at the community college :) Did you teach yourself everything? Also....what is this VIN thing everyones talking about
 
BulldogMS said:
Wouldn't it be more cost effective overall to take only the amount you need, not that extra thousand here or 500 there, and forget creative financing, such as paying off interest accrued during school? It seems that for all too many, the temptation to squander loan money would be ripe for the spending. On the flipside, if you take only what you absolutely need, there's a good chance you'll fight to remain above water and within your budget, as there will be no other viable options to tap into. However, to have an extra thousand or two or or more of monies borrowed from the government, to 'play' with, or have as a false cushion, isn't as financially savvy as loan funds turned away. After all, you won't have to pay back anything you don't borrow. The days of taking a low interest loan, investing that money which materializes as a smart investment is long gone. Why not scrap the creative financing,take what you absolutely need, not a dollar more, and start paying it back 6 months after you graduate?
Click to expand...

It depends on your living situation. I took out cost of living loans this year because there was no guarantee the husband would find a job within the first year. We wouldn't be able to afford rent if he didn't have a job. That being said I'm glad I took out the extra now that he does have a job because we needed it for emergency money. I can't ask out of state family to help if I get into a tight spot because I'm working to get residency. Also you never know what supplies you're going to need and whether or not there will be something you need for school that wasn't accounted for. It doesn't work for everyone to take a little more, but I'm so glad I did. That being said, I'm hoping to not have to take any extra out over the next years because I have the extra from this year.
 
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