Loans

[kinkajou]

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This whole "take out 150Gs to finance veterinary school" thing has really got me nervous. Does anyone have any soothing words, stories or whatnot to ease my fears of financial paralysis for 20 some odd years.

Anyone else out there stressing about this? I currently have no student loans so the whole idea of being in the hole is really unsettling (especially since its quite a significant lump of cash).

- The jou

 

[Emio]

Does anyone have any soothing words, stories or whatnot to ease my fears of financial paralysis for 20 some odd years.

i do: you don't have any loans to start vet school with. rejoice.

i'm 80K in the hole already.

 

[jfitzpatri8]

I'll be right around $250K from vet school alone. The loans are financed over 30 years. OF COURSE we are all concerned. Every single one of us- even the ones only paying $15K/ year in tuition. But this profession is not one about the money. It is about the drive. It is about following the proverbial impossible dream and proving that @sshole OChem instructor WRONG!

Ok, maybe that is just me.

 

[dyachei]

This whole "take out 150Gs to finance veterinary school" thing has really got me nervous. Does anyone have any soothing words, stories or whatnot to ease my fears of financial paralysis for 20 some odd years.

Anyone else out there stressing about this? I currently have no student loans so the whole idea of being in the hole is really unsettling (especially since its quite a significant lump of cash).

- The jou

At least you'll be doing what you love?

Seriously though, depending on what you do, there are loan forgiveness programs that they are trying to put into place in some states. And some businesses help with it, too, from what I've heard. Not to mention some jobs pay pretty well - according to the dean of UTK who came in and told us as much in class this week.

 

[Nexx]

The advice I have for you is don't worry about it! (yet)

If you look around the forums here you will find posts on this subject where there are some students (possibly current vets) that will actually tell you to run, run as fast as you can away from Vet med simply due to your loan burden. They will tell you that it is going to take you all your earnings every paycheck just to make minimum payments, that you have to marry rich, blah blah blah...

Bottom line, almost every vet for the last (at least) 25-50 years has gone through the same debate and a majority of them are still practicing, doing fine and have their loans paid off.

Just make a financial plan now and make appropriate choices! If you don't have to take out loans or as much loans don't. If you have money at the end of the semester pay it back! Also upon graduation you don't have to go buy a house, a fancy car, pop out 7 kids, etc... Make the choice to continue to live like a student. If you want to, there is also the possibility of 'selling out' to corporate medicine for a few years @ $100,000/year. Live off of $20k/year still (still more than a student wage!) and pay $60k in loans a year--we'll assume the other $20k is going to taxes.

Basically.. the main consensus is loans aren't a huge problem, a burden yes, but entirely doable...

 

[KittenKiller]

This whole "take out 150Gs to finance veterinary school" thing has really got me nervous. Does anyone have any soothing words, stories or whatnot to ease my fears of financial paralysis for 20 some odd years.

lol ....soothing words?

ummm...shopping spree! buy some nice prada handbags, a few pairs of designer jeans and maybe a slick new iphone. You're rich till the debt collectors catch up with you, muahaha

 

[david594]

Just buy that van now and find a nice space down by the river. You will always have a place to call home them.

 

[kate_g]

Bottom line, almost every vet for the last (at least) 25-50 years has gone through the same debate and a majority of them are still practicing, doing fine and have their loans paid off.

Careful... The price of in-state tuition more than doubled at Davis in the past 5 or 6 years. That's *way* higher than inflation, and therefore higher than the rise in expected salary over the same time period. Now, in that time I think Davis started out cheaper than average for in-state and ended up more expensive than average. But other schools have experienced similar price hikes. When I first considered vet school in 1999, Penn's in-state tuition was like $11,000/year. Really. (Don't think I'm not kicking myself for not going for it then!) One of the vets I work with said she borrowed less for the entirety of vet school (less than 20 years ago, maybe less than 15, not entirely sure) than many of us will take our first year.

Given all that, only the past couple years' graduates have got anything like the debt load we're going to have, and most of them are not yet making a "real" (i.e. finished residency, or had a couple years' practice and can bargain for better pay) salary to be able to know how things really settle out. Making plans (or choosing not to make plans) based on the experiences of someone who went to school 25-50 years ago is unwise.

I'm not trying to be all doomsday here, just advocating knowing what you're getting into.

 

[Bill59]

Kate's right, the cost of higher education has dramatically increased lately. DVMs 20 years ago rarely had the debt levels new graduates have today. Costs are increasing much more than DVM salaries. This creates several problems IMO.

- New graduates have to be more concerned about salaries when deciding which jobs to take. I think this is a factor in less people going into food animal. One of the strengths of this profession IMO has been most of us are going into because we love it, not for purely financial reasons.

- Some otherwise excellent applicants simply can no longer afford veterinary school. This impacts those from certain backgrounds more than others, rural and inner city for example. This means less diversity in the profession, which is rarely a good thing.

- Recent graduates have so much debt they often can't take on any more debt to buy a practice. There's a lot of older veterinarians that have poured a lifetime of money and sweat into building a practice and are counting on selling that practice for their retirement. However, there is often no younger vets that can afford to buy it. In some cases, corporations step in to buy it -- whether that's good or not is a whole nuther topic.

Why are veterinary schools doing this? Mostly because they have to. State funding at many state vet schools has been flat or even declining for the past decade or so (yet even another topic). And the money has to come from somewhere.

 

[akitavet]

Anyone else out there stressing about this? I currently have no student loans so the whole idea of being in the hole is really unsettling (especially since its quite a significant lump of cash).

Yes I am stressing about this too and have been from the begining. Its one reason why it took me a long time to really decide on vet medicine. I was in the same boat, and to top it off, I had a high paying engineering job. It was aweful. And all I ever wanted to do was dog stuff, which I had exactly no time for. That and I was a peon in a company going nowhere with only the hope that someone would take favor in me and give me an opportunity to do something important.

Then I pretty much said f- it. Its more important to be fundamentally happy in your work than it is to be compensated well financially for it. The loans suck, plain and simple. There are lots of people out there with big student loans though and they are making it just fine. Look at all the humanities and liberal arts majors that went to private school and have very small earning potentials and huge loans from undergrad. They make me feel better VBEG

 

[kinkajou]

If you want to, there is also the possibility of 'selling out' to corporate medicine for a few years @ $100,000/year. Live off of $20k/year still (still more than a student wage!) and pay $60k in loans a year--we'll assume the other $20k is going to taxes....

a little off the topic just for one second. To get in on one of those high paid corporate medicine jobs would you need anything specific post grad or could you jump right in?
Only 20,000 off of 100,000 paid to taxes?? that's wishful thinking!

 

[dyachei]

a little off the topic just for one second. To get in on one of those high paid corporate medicine jobs would you need anything specific post grad or could you jump right in?
Only 20,000 off of 100,000 paid to taxes?? that's wishful thinking!

At Banfield, you can do internships and externships which helps later when you apply for the job. They also have a doctor mentorship program for the first two years of practice. This is all coming from their information that they gave us new students in their student planner.

 

[akitavet]

Theres also the prospect of working for a drug company either in a MSL or scientific role. My mom is a pharma exec and keeps trying to get me to go that route. I want to actually practice. If I wanted to work for a pharma co. I would have stuck with engineering. They do pay big bucks though

 

[GallopRealyFast]

I am going through this Brain Vs. Heart debate with myself as well. One one hand I can follow my heart go to vet school and start my career (after internships etc.) tons thousands of dollars in debt when I'm like 30...Or listen to my brain I can start with my career years earlier with a lot less debt (=money to live without asking for money from my parents) making a lot more money being a Physician Assistant. Hey I can just spend my Physician Assistant earnings on vet bills....ARRRGH i hate floundering around..!

And what makes me so nuts is seeing people that are very close to me ripping out their hair every day because of loans and debts...

Stupid greedy college tuition people.

 

[cyrille104]

lol ....soothing words?

ummm...shopping spree! buy some nice prada handbags, a few pairs of designer jeans and maybe a slick new iphone. You're rich till the debt collectors catch up with you, muahaha

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

 

[ckgilabert]

my advisor said that he knows an old student who is now a 'relief vet' and makes $500/day.

so this vet just goes to practices and tells them "if you go on vacation, maternity or medical leave, i'll work".

so thats a pretty good deal. 🙂

 

[kate_g]

so thats a pretty good deal. 🙂

Even if there are enough practices in your area to ensure you can work five days a week, 50 weeks a year, as a relief vet (seems unlikely) that's still only $125K/year. (Which is more like a "regular" salary of $100K because you'll also have to pay malpractice insurance, private health insurance, and self-employment tax.)

Where was this? Here in CA, $100K/year is below average as far as professional salaries go, probably not enough to both buy a house and send your kid to college. There are areas of the country, of course, where $100K goes a lot further, and relief vet income could be relatively higher here to make up for that (I've never asked one).

 

[Pennvet]

I have some advice for you: Suck it up.

 

[laurafinn]

110% agree with everything kate_g said. It would be wise to take a stab at making a post-graduation budget to see how things will pan out for you financially and to prepare yourself. If you've never lived on your own before (without monetary help, without paying your own taxes), sit down with your parents and find out what kind of taxes are taken out of salaries, what kind of expenditures you'll have (some hefty bills may not occur to you), etc. Another thing to think about is the length of your loan repayment -- what might be fine 5 years out from graduation may get to be very tired after 15 years. Anyway, sorry to be a voice of gloom and doom, but you do need to figure out if going into vet med is worth it for you.

 

[spikey]

veterinary medicine is its own reward.

i'm not saying i'm not concerned, but i'm doing it for the right reasons and the rest shall follow. unfortunately for me, and a lot of others, debt is unavoidable in this profession. but i'll be a happy poor person 😀

 

[Habibti]

I'm going to disagree with Kate. Yes, as the phrase goes, the times they are a-changing, but times are always changing (such is life) and we, as humans, base our current decisions on what has happened in the past. Things won't pan out exactly the way they did in the past, but they will almost inevitably turn out ok. During orientation, we had numerous vets (professors and semi-recent graduates) talk to us. Not a single vet (including those graduating 1998, 2000, and 2001) spoke about unnecessary financial hardship due to student loans. Perhaps these vets are not 'living large', but they are living comfortably. A 1998 mixed practice vet (married to a mixed practice vet) is paying his final student loan payment this month. Yes, there is quite a debt load and it will require scrimping for a while, but is it undoable? No.

 

[kate_g]

Not a single vet (including those graduating 1998, 2000, and 2001) spoke about unnecessary financial hardship due to student loans.

But my whole point was that tuition in 2000 was half what it is in 2007, so those vets have half the payment you'll have. For all our sake I sure hope *they're* not having trouble paying!

Yes, there is quite a debt load and it will require scrimping for a while, but is it undoable? No.

If I thought it was undoable, I wouldn't be doing it. Well, probably not, anyway. 🙂

I don't think we really disagree here. Like I said, I wasn't trying to be discouraging, just promoting an informed approach. Relying on "it will be OK for us because it's always been OK before" or "I can just live like a student forever" seems unwise. I'm guessing many will find that in four years, or fifteen years, they're no longer so willing to eat Ramen noodles and forego luxuries like raising a family or owning a home. So, panic? No. Worry? Well, a little worry now, if it inspires some research and planning, might save a lot of heartache later...