Okay thanks very much!! I thought it seemed weird but just wanted to check I wasn't missing something. And yeah different standards in life sciences PhD programs--my brother got flown to all the schools and wined/dined when he was there. Also, it was less of them interviewing him and way more like he was trying to be won over and convinced.
Estimated Costs of Veterinary School
- Thread starter alliecat44
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I've gone through the PhD program wining and dining and I knew going into vet school interviews that nothing would be covered. Still, I couldn't help but miss having EVERYTHING paid for. Not going to complain though, I'll take any vet school interview I can get!
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If you visit SGU, and matriculate, then they will reimburse you.
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Mexican? Better hope it's a post interview meal. Nerves + Mexican + interview is bound to be a bad time.
I was looking at some scholarships that you can apply for the first year of vet school. I noticed most are for students who want to pursue a specific area of veterinary medicine. For example, "this scholarship is for those who want to pursue small animals" or "shelter medicine".
Currently, I have a bunch of interests that I want to explore in veterinary school-small animal, research, shelter medicine, public health...But does this mean I can't apply to any of the scholarships? Or I can apply to all-but I feel like that would look weird. How do I go about this? I know a lot of people change paths in veterinary school. Thanks.
Currently, I have a bunch of interests that I want to explore in veterinary school-small animal, research, shelter medicine, public health...But does this mean I can't apply to any of the scholarships? Or I can apply to all-but I feel like that would look weird. How do I go about this? I know a lot of people change paths in veterinary school. Thanks.
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You can apply to whatever interests you have (however new or small or divided that interest is). You may just not be as competitive as someone else who has demonstrated interest in it.
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Does anyone know of some place/company where you can talk about financial aide and loan debt that isn't one of the schools? I'm trying to decide between an in country school (5ok a year) and an out of country school (~50k a year but 5 years). While I'm afforded a lot more opportunities with the out of country school (it's accredited for many more countries, opening me up to working more places) , I want to know just how much of a giant hole of debt I would be giving myself with that extra year. I figure if I talk to the schools directly they might try and sugarcoat it a bit more. I figure either way I'll be living in a cave until I'm ancient. I just want to make sure I will be able to eat in my cave.
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Is the 50K a year for each school figuring in living costs as well as travel costs? Also, if that out of country school is in the UK, you have to consider that you will need to travel a lot on break for EMS. While you will still want to get experience at the in country school, you are not required to. And you might be able to get paid experience. Not only that, you can find experiences you want to have and in an area close to home where you may not have to travel or pay for a hotel.
Also, you have to consider that 50K for one extra year is equal to about $3500 in interest just for that 50K, however you have to recall that is an entire extra year in which you will have another 200K pulled out and interest on 200K is about $14,000. These are ballpark ranges and should be taken with a +/- in mind. But an extra ~$68,000 is nothing to take lightly. Especially considering that you will forever have to pay interest on that extra $68K. And this is only considering that $50K for that one year. This isn't including any differences in cost of living, travel, etc. Which could easily drive this number up to more than $100K.
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Question about the refund checks for loans, is it one per semester or one per year? Do they just divide the amount asked for in half and give you half in August and the rest in January? The reason I'm asking is that I have enough money left in my college fund to pay for my first semester tuition and most likely living expenses too, but I would need loan money for the second half. So if the amount I plan to pull out for the first year is only about half of the cost of attendance, will that still be given to me in two pieces, and I just have to save the leftover from first semester so I have enough for second semester?
(If this varies per school, if anyone can answer for Penn that would be great!)
(If this varies per school, if anyone can answer for Penn that would be great!)
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Typically you get it in two chunks, one at the and of August and one at the beginning of January. I'm pretty sure you can change how much you get at each distribution. So for the first semester you can choose to not take anything out and then get a distribution at the beginning of January. Also, if something comes up and you need funds first semester, you can take some out prior to January.
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Would you say that cheaper tuition or cheaper cost of living is more important? I compared the OOS school I was accepted to to my IS school on the VIN cost of attendance map. While the OOS tuiton over 4 years is $100,000 more expensive than my IS, the cost of living at my IS for 4 years is a projected $92,000. That makes only a $73,000 difference between cost of attendance for the two for 4 years. This doesn't even take the financial crisis my home state is in into consideration. Tuition at my IS has increased by around $6,000 in the last year, and severe budget cuts to the higher Ed system threaten to rise it even more. The map showed there's actually a few OOS schools cheaper than my IS or close to the cost of it. I emailed a falculty member at the school by the recommendation of a current student at my IS to get his opinion on the fiscal crisis and he said, in a word, that everyone is pretty much in the same place about the education situation in my state: in the dark.
I'm sorry if this is a silly question but scholarships and state funding programs have always covered everything for me so I've never had to worry about loans. I just want to know what to consider if I get accepted into my IS. Thanks!
I'm sorry if this is a silly question but scholarships and state funding programs have always covered everything for me so I've never had to worry about loans. I just want to know what to consider if I get accepted into my IS. Thanks!
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Thats still a lot of money, especially if you are going to be paying all pf it with loans, since you have to consider that number plus the extra interest. And you can always make adjustments to your lifestyle to bring CoL down. Now, if tuition hikes get really bad for your IS and suddenly you end up paying 75k more than you thought you would, yeah, that would suck, but that's not a very likely scenario.
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I'm not sure the word "only" is appropriate.
That's a heck of a lot of money. Down payment on a house plus a nice car.
Don't forget that interest plus capitalization will quickly make that number rise. Loan payments on 73K alone would be close to $700 a month on a ten year repayment plan.
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Whoa, didn't mean to say "only" there. Thesis has scrambled my brain and my syntax. The language that our governor has been using to describe the fiscal issues has been pretty scary, with talks of a lot of colleges, including my own shutting down in April, unless professors want to work for free for one month so we can graduate on time. These of course are worst-case scenarios, but scary that they're even remotely possible nonetheless. Thanks for the speedy answers, just trying to weigh pros and cons!
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I have seen the VIN cost of attendance map referenced a few times on various forums. It seems to me that they greatly overestimate the cost of living expenses. Wisconsin is my in state so I know enough people in the Madison area to get a good feel for what it costs to live there. Even with overestimating the big things (rent, food, having a car) I still came up $10,000 short of the $74,600 they list. Do other people have similar thoughts about the cost of living expenses estimated for their areas?
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The information from the VIN map is provided by the school's themselves and also account for, like, a 5-6% increase each year. I have much different expenses than many of my classmates because I am older, so I end up spending more than them. We fill out a survey every year about our expenses which the school uses to estimate living expenses. My expenses are less than what A&M allows, but I could easily see how those numbers were reached based on different variables.
Edit: This...was not a well-written post. That's what I get for trying to multitask during Clin Path lecture.
Edit: This...was not a well-written post. That's what I get for trying to multitask during Clin Path lecture.
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I was just thinking that the estimates seemed strange to me. But I'm also older and have different expenses and expectations. Living expenses at Blacksburg are 30k less than Raleigh for example. I guess this makes some sense since Raleigh is a bigger city, but it all depends on how you are living. Any travel out of Blacksburg (flight wise) and you have to drive to Roanoke, plus flights out of there are going to be more expensive than Raleigh. If you travel home a lot this could be an issue. If you are fortunate enough to be in a SO situation that allows for the purchase of a home, then I'd say Blacksburg is probably more affordable for that than Raleigh, but UCDavis, which is 25k higher than Raleigh over 4 years, is not at all affordable. To afford a house you'd have to live WAY out of town and parking is awful there because it's a biking town. Davis home pricing is +2x that of the Raleigh area. Single home prices at Davis are over half a million. Price per square foot compared to Raleigh is 2.5-3x, which is insane. Markets where it is cheaper to own than to rent can create interesting rent prices for those that have no other choice. When home pricing goes up, rent goes up because the homeowner has to pay the higher mortgage and because they can justify it...so even though 99% or more will probably rent, keep that in mind. If you want less roommates you are going to be paying more for that peace and quiet. $1000+ a month to live by yourself is going to be a lot more costly than a town where you can be 1/4 renters and pay $300/mo.
Don't forget car insurance, maintenance, health stuff, pet stuff, etc. Stuff adds up quickly. I could see Raleigh's number being right. I would have thought Davis was too low. I think Blacksburg might have been a little low, but again, it's all in how you want to live...for me rent seems to be one of the variables that could fluctuate a lot, whereas food and gas seem pretty steady no matter what I do. If you have large loans, you obviously need to live as cheaply as possible. It will pay off later.
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That's fine, it explained more than the website, all they said was that they used school reported data, which is super vague. But if it's basically an average of all the reported student costs, I can see why there is so much variability.
This might not be the place for this question, so apologies in advance.
Do you think the rising debt students get themselves into is partially to blame for lower starting salaries?
Example: I'm a practice owner, 5 new graduate vets come to me and want a job. I know at least 4 of them have to be in debt, so I can set the offered salary a little lower, maybe take away some benefits, whatever to save myself money but that might make the job a little less attractive. I can do this because I know one of them will be desperate enough for a job that they'll take what I offer them. The no-debt graduate has a bit more freedom to be slightly more demanding in what she/he is looking for because loan payments aren't looming.
In the sense if you flood the market with desperate workers then its harder to earn a decent living for everyone. I'm not saying the shear numbers of graduating vets isn't contributing, but the looming debt seems to me it would play a large factor too. If everyone who graduated this year had no debt, would people be more picky about which jobs they took, forcing practices to offer better jobs?
Thanks for your thoughts.
Do you think the rising debt students get themselves into is partially to blame for lower starting salaries?
Example: I'm a practice owner, 5 new graduate vets come to me and want a job. I know at least 4 of them have to be in debt, so I can set the offered salary a little lower, maybe take away some benefits, whatever to save myself money but that might make the job a little less attractive. I can do this because I know one of them will be desperate enough for a job that they'll take what I offer them. The no-debt graduate has a bit more freedom to be slightly more demanding in what she/he is looking for because loan payments aren't looming.
In the sense if you flood the market with desperate workers then its harder to earn a decent living for everyone. I'm not saying the shear numbers of graduating vets isn't contributing, but the looming debt seems to me it would play a large factor too. If everyone who graduated this year had no debt, would people be more picky about which jobs they took, forcing practices to offer better jobs?
Thanks for your thoughts.
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Huh I never considered it from that aspect. I haven't graduated yet, nor do I plan to go into private practice, but I feel like my impending debt would make me more demanding and particular about having a decent starting salary because I need to both be able to pay off loans as well as earn a living. Just my 2 cents and since I'm not there yet I can't really say for sure.
Oh I considered this thought process as well, but let's be honest, we are all looking for the highest possible paycheck after paying this much to go to school. The best and brightest will likely get some of the best offers (I am guessing). I guess I then figured if there are 100 students and only 90 jobs, someone is going to get stuck fighting for one and one way to get a job versus no job is to be the sucker that takes less pay/benefits. :-( Obviously you hope to work your way out of it.
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I think that still comes down to saturation though. You have that disparity between the number of graduates and the number of jobs, which drives everything else. Even if you're debt free, nobody wants to spend 4 years in vet school and then not have a job at the end of it. Say we all have a huge amount of debt but the field isn't so saturated - in that scenario salaries would probably be higher. And if everybody had no debt, but the market was still saturated, salaries would probably drop through the ground. Having both market saturation and huge debt certainly makes the problem worse, but I think the saturation is the bigger driving force.
True, the saturation is absolutely a huge issue and none of the schools seem to be helping. However, because you have the varied debt levels (anywhere from 0 - 300k) you have a wide variety of 'how low am I willing to go'. I just wonder if we are down playing how much debt is factoring into the lowering of salaries.
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I don't think it is playing as big of a factor as you are thinking. Yes, some people are going to eventually get to the "I really just need a job" point, but the bigger issue is that you have 5 applicants for 1 position. It doesn't matter how much debt each applicant has, you have more applicants than you need, so you get your pick of them. To a point, debt will play a part in what you accept, but it will be more in the direction of "I need x amount to survive and pay loans" so it is going to be more of a needing a minimum amount and not just accepting whatever someone is going to offer.
However, so far, none of my classmates have had issues finding jobs and most of them have had multiple offers at this point. There are still going to be a few that have problems or issues locating a job and we don't have a lot of room to be too picky, but we do have some room to make negotiations.
This might be a long shot, but is anyone here a Canadian who was successfully able to finance an education at a US vet school? Does anyone have advice on this (other than "don't do it", which I know is the predominant opinion)?
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My roommate is canadian and we go to RUSVM... She basically opened a line of credit with a rich aunt as a cosigner. She also complained to the school enough that they gave her a big grant for the first semester.
That being said she is constantly stressed about money and quite honestly it makes her a bit neurotic.
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Has any current student that was pulled of the wait list had any trouble with financial aid not being enough to cover their expenses? I'm wait listed at two schools and I've already filled out the FAFSA and designated which schools to send my info to. I know all the schools have different budgets and their own method of awarding aid. I'm wondering if wait listed folks will be offered less aid, since I'm assuming most of the budget is 'first come, first serve', therefore those that are accepted will have a better aid package than those that are pulled off the wait list at a later time? I could be wrong about this. Any insight would be helpful!
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I have this same question. Also, because there's such a short time frame for wait listers to decide, I'm assuming they don't give you any idea of what your financial package would look like before you have to give them an answer. Is this correct? Would be nice since those accepted tend to get their packages before the April 15 deadline so they are able to compare between schools. In my particular case I have an acceptance at one OOS school and am on a wait list for another OOS school. If I'm lucky enough to be called off the wait list after April 15, I would love to be able to compare financial packages to help me decide whether to keep the original acceptance or take the wait list position.
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You get full cost of attendance and cost of living no matter what. I filled out my FAFSA in August once. Still got the loans I needed.
If you want financial info for a school and it isn't online, you could probably ask for it.
If you want financial info for a school and it isn't online, you could probably ask for it.
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New figures on the 2015 graduating class of about 3,000 students:
Mean Educational Debt Load: $174,060
223 members of the class owed in excess of $300,000 in student loans
Average salary for those getting "real jobs" (not internships or residencies): $71,000
Mean Educational Debt Load: $174,060
223 members of the class owed in excess of $300,000 in student loans
Average salary for those getting "real jobs" (not internships or residencies): $71,000
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Anyone familiar with the Health Professions Loan and/or the Disadvantage Student Loans. According to my FAFSA, it says I may be eligible. I got an email from Illinois stating that if I want to be considered, I must reply back to them by a certain date and that I may have to submit verification forms. I'm assuming the verification forms are just my parents tax filing information since I heard that you must supply them in order to be considered. Is that correct?
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I would ask Illinois directly what forms these would be.
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Thanks I will do that. It is that I'm on the waitlist for this school and I don't even have a ID, so I can't even view how much aid I was offered :\
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I haven't gotten my FAFSA done yet, so I feel ya. I can't see mine yet either.
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http://www.aavmc.org/data/files/vmcas/geninfo.pdf
LSU tuition... Bruh. Did I read that right? My OOS ended up being cheaper!
LSU tuition... Bruh. Did I read that right? My OOS ended up being cheaper!
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That's insane even by UMN standards! Can't possibly be right... can it??
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That LSU tuition is INSANE! Surely that's a misprint?! 54k for IS tuition??? I can't even...
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Wherever that info came from, it's wrong. This is from LSU's actual web page and is the rate for the 2015-16 season.
$24,902 for IS and $39,452 OOS
$24,902 for IS and $39,452 OOS
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And idk of the residency policy will change, because LSU is a school that fixes the rate. So OOS... Yeah. That is literally not sustainable.
That's what it's always been, so I'm hoping its all a misprint. Because that chart is the supposed AAVMC rate for the 2016-17 year. I seriously hope it's wrong.
That's what it's always been, so I'm hoping its all a misprint. Because that chart is the supposed AAVMC rate for the 2016-17 year. I seriously hope it's wrong.
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Found it on the AAVMC website. Must be an misprint in that case.
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No way they could get away with raising it that much. There would be a statewide man hunt.
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That page also states that the tuition at Ross is 18k/year. Sloppy reading on the part of whomever compiled the table; that's the rate per semester.
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If we wanna get technical with it, our last governor deserves to be in prison. So any manhunt would be for him, and they've already started. The state is in unprecedented financial turmoil after he turned the surpluses into multibillion deficits. Multiple hospitals and schools are facing closure and scholarships for undergrads are barely funded at 50% for the next year. I've talked to so many who can no longer afford school when I had my tuition paid for by state grants. It's so sad.
They may have pulled these numbers from the cost of attendance, but they still don't match from what's on the website. Soooo weird. But I feel better knowing that there are other mistakes on the chart. Now I can trust it less.
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heh. I don't trust anything that doesn't come directly from each school because of things like this.
D
deleted676737
Yeah, it's gotta be a mistake on AAVMC's part. I mean... $55k for IS tuition and $84k for OOS? What!?
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Man, $54K for COA still seems really high. Then again, I know nothing about Baton Rogue and cost of living there...plus, if the numbers reported are like A&M's, then it's likely an overshoot.
