Blunt approves new loans for vet students
MU veterinary students will be eligible for $500,000 in loans.
Published Oct. 12, 2007
To remedy the shortage of large-animal veterinarians around Missouri, Gov. Matt Blunt signed legislation last week that would allocate $500,000 for loans to students planning to pursue that career in Missouri.
"This funding will create a corps of young, talented veterinarians ready to serve family farmers in underserved areas across the state, helping to ensure that the next generation of Missouri's family farmers has the veterinary resources available to continue our state's agricultural tradition," Blunt stated in a news release.
The only university this legislation affects is MU because it is the only one in the state with a college dedicated to veterinary medicine.
Only 28 such colleges exist nationwide.
Details are still being worked out, but John Dodam, associate dean for academic affairs at the College of Veterinary Medicine, said he expects six students will be selected each year to get up to $20,000 for up to four consecutive years.
The money would come from the Large Animal Veterinary Student Loan Payment Fund.
Dodam was involved in the establishment of the bill. He served on the Missouri Veterinary Medicine Association committee that considered the potential for the bill Blunt signed.
He also testified in support of the bill to the state senate's agriculture committee.
Students could receive the loans as soon as the next academic year, Dodam said.
Both current and incoming students in the College of Veterinary Medicine will be eligible for the loans, which are known as repayment loans.
"Repayment" refers to the two ways students can repay the state for the loans. They can either serve as a large-animal vet in the state for a certain number of years after graduating or pay the money, with interest, back to Missouri, Dodam said.
"It's great," Dodam said. "The cost of tuition is going up, and perhaps state support for education isn't what we'd like it to be."
He said that type of support would help students.
The other benefit of the program, Dodam said, is that it helps fulfill a need for more large-animal veterinarians around Missouri, specifically, and also, more generally, around the United States.
"Nobody has enough practicing vets in the food-animal sector, so that (the program) is to stimulate this in Missouri, and hopefully other states will do this across the country," said Taylor Woods, the acting state veterinarian at the Missouri Department of Agriculture.
Similar programs have been established in other states, including Kansas, Woods said.
An oversight committee is scheduled to meet and discuss the loan program further next week, Missouri Department of Agriculture spokeswoman Misti Preston said.