I agree with PP; from what I’ve seen sticking around SDN for nearly 15 years now is that masters often don’t help as much as people would like or as much as you’d think. So many schools emphasize prereq GPAs and other various calculations that it can be hard to move the needle. IMO, thorough research and applying smart is much more important. That’s not to say a masters is useless or doesn’t ever help, but make sure you know what your target schools look at and how they’ll factor it in. I’d mostly advise someone to do a masters if they’re truly interested in that topic and if it can be an acceptable backup plan for them if vet med doesn’t work out.
In regards to the BBB and changes to student loans specifically, don’t forget that there is now a $20,500 annual limit for federal loans for a masters/PhD. It’s hard if not impossible to pay tuition and live on that amount. I believe that the $100,000 lifetime cap for graduate studies is separate from the $200,000 professional studies lifetime cap, but you would still be subject to the $257,000 total lifetime, across-all-types federal loan cap, so if you’re planning on vet school, you need to be really careful how much you borrow for potential masters coursework (and undergrad, though that’s probably outside the realm of this thread). If you don’t have undergraduate loans, that gives you a little more “wiggle room” within the federal caps to pay for a masters, but funding extra classes has definitely gotten a lot more complicated with the new changes.
