COLLEGE STATION, Texas – A new
report issued by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board concludes
that a second veterinary college would be expensive to create and operate and
is unnecessary in the state of Texas, particularly with the opening of a $120
million veterinary teaching complex at Texas A&M University.
“The high cost of establishing a new veterinary school would
outweigh the potential benefits to the state, given the small to moderate
workforce demand and the issue that building a new school would not guarantee
that any of the graduates would practice on livestock, which is the state’s
principal area of need, but there are more cost-effective ways of addressing
the need for medical care for food animals in Texas,” the study concluded. The
staff report was presented at Thursday’s meeting of the Coordinating Board and released to the media today.
“I concur with the overall conclusion because it confirms
the Coordinating Board’s past recommendations to the Texas Legislature,” said
Dr. Eleanor M. Green, the Carl B. King Dean of the College of Veterinary
Medicine & Biomedical Sciences at Texas A&M University. “It is clear
they were diligent and thoughtful in their study, which has resulted in a
substantive, data-driven report about veterinary medical education in Texas. I
believe this report bolsters our announcement in January for a judicious
expansion of veterinary education, research and undergraduate outreach into
several regions of the state through four Texas A&M System universities.”
In January, Texas A&M University announced partnerships
with West Texas A&M University, Prairie View A&M University, Texas
A&M University-Kingsville and Tarleton State University that would add
veterinary faculty and researchers at those universities to support the state’s
important agricultural industries while focusing on increasing the number of
successful applicants to veterinary college from those regions.
The partnerships address two ongoing concerns repeated in
the new study: Increasing the number of underrepresented minority students in
veterinary college and ensuring a supply of large animal veterinarians
practicing in the state’s rural areas.
All four of the A&M System universities have significant
underrepresented minority student populations as well as unique animal science
programs and ties to the livestock or wildlife industries in their regions.
“The thought is that students from those regions are more
likely to return home to practice veterinary medicine,” said Green. “Our
proposal is the only one that tries to address all the key concerns, including
achieving greater diversity in the veterinary profession, increasing the number
of large animal and rural veterinarians and meeting the unique needs of
multiple regions of the state. And we do it at a fraction of the cost of
creating a new veterinary medical education program from scratch.”
The creation of the regional partnerships became possible
with this fall’s opening of a state-of-the-art veterinary teaching complex at
College Station that allows the veterinary college to accept more applicants,
particularly from the four regional universities. The $120 million facility,
which is located at the heart of the university’s main campus and works closely
with the Texas A&M Health Science Center, was funded from the Permanent
University Fund.
Texas A&M’s decision to invest in the new complex was
prompted by a 2009 report issued by the Coordinating Board, which similarly
concluded that no new veterinary school was needed and encouraged Texas A&M
to expand its enrollment. At the time, the American Veterinary Medical
Association Council on Education warned that the college’s existing facilities
could not handle such an expansion. With the opening of the new complex, there
are no longer any constraints on the college’s ability to meet the state’s
future veterinary educational needs.
“The new building will accommodate a first-year, class-size
increase of 20 to 30 students easily, with more room to grow, should there be a
future need,” the Coordinating Board study noted.
Texas A&M University already has hired veterinary
faculty assigned to West Texas A&M and is asking the Legislature for an
appropriation to further support all of the partnerships.
The veterinary faculty at those universities will teach
students, further support animal agriculture and mentor students to
successfully enter the rigorous veterinary curriculum. They will also offer
relevant veterinary courses on site.
“For the sake of taxpayers and our students and alumni, it
is vital that we approach the expansion of veterinary education strategically
and judiciously,” Green said.
Michael Dicks, the director of the American Veterinary
Medical Association’s Veterinary Economics Division, issued
a report in December 2015 concluding that the creation of new veterinary
schools could have an adverse impact on the starting salaries of veterinarians.
“This decline in income would exacerbate the existing
disparity between growth rates in income and debt, causing the debt-to-income
ratio to rise. The rising debt-to-income ratio will likely accelerate the
reduction in applicants, perpetuating the potentially negative effects on the
market for veterinary education,” he wrote.
The Coordinating Board study noted that tuition and fees at
Texas A&M’s veterinary college are not only below the national average but
in the bottom third of all U.S. veterinary schools. Texas A&M veterinary
students already have the lowest debt-to-income ratio in the nation.
The report also said that the workforce demand for
veterinarians is “moderate and closely aligned with supply.”
