The student debt dilemma For many years, new entrants to the veterinary profession have begun their careers with a heavy burden of debt. Things may be bad now but they are soon going to get a lot worse. Association of Veterinary Students President, Heather Niman, tells John Bonner about her fears for the future of undergraduate education.
Every three years the BVA carries out a survey of its undergraduate members. This has charted the steady growth in the amount of money owed by a typical veterinary student on graduation. An extra factor entered the financial equation at the start of this academic year which won’t appear on a student’s final bank statement until the next-but-one triennial survey in 2012. The newly introduced ‘topup’ tuition fees of £3000 a year are a financial time bomb set to explode in the pockets of the veterinary class of 2011 and which could also undermine the demographic foundations of the profession.
Rising debt In last year’s BVA survey, the cohort of veterinary students graduating in 2005 reported an average debt of more than £17,000. Beginning with the 2006–07 intake, veterinary undergraduates at the four schools south of the border – and those crossing it to study in Glasgow and Edinburgh – will pay annual tuition fees of £3000, up nearly £2000 on previous years. The Student Loans Company has increased the loans available to cover these extra fees. So once these veterinary students have graduated and are earning above the annual £15,000 salary threshold for repayments they will have to find around £10,000 more.
A student’s view Fourth year Bristol vet school student Heather Niman believes that financial pressures are already adding significantly to the stress felt by those taking what is widely regarded as the most demanding of all current university courses. ”There are a lot of students that are not coping that well,” she notes. Moreover, her concerns about the effects of heaping further financial burdens are shared by some of her more experienced colleagues. At an RCVS-sponsored meeting at BSAVA Congress in April, money worries among newly qualified vets was cited as a potential factor in the profession’s worrying record of self-harm. Heather believes there are good reasons for the government to offer veterinary students the same privileges given to clinical year medical and dentistry students in having tuition fees paid by central government. On behalf of its student division, the BVA has lobbied Defra to support such a change but so far without success. The government argued that public funds should not be spent supporting veterinary training when the majority of graduates will enter the private sector and deal with species that have no major strategic importance. It also pointed out that the debts incurred during veterinary training have done little to deter potential students – the six schools attract many times more applicants than the places available and another school has since opened to cope with the demand.
Comparison with human medics The AVS believes that comparisons with human medical degrees are valid and is disappointed that Defra has chosen to downplay the farm animal and public health elements of the undergraduate course. “Like the medics, we are trained to learn the skills and knowledge needed to try and keep the country disease-free. That is a massive part of our job and its one that Defra insists that we continue to do, yet it is something that they are not prepared to support,” she says. It is not surprising that many veterinary students look with some envy towards their university friends on human medicine courses. The absence of senior year tuition fees is not the only financial advantage they have over veterinary students. NHS bursaries are offered in recognition of the contribution made by medical students to maintaining hospital services. Heather also points out that medics enjoy a significantly greater earning potential both before and after graduation.
Supplementing your loan She says that veterinary students would be happy to earn the money that would help them pay their way through college but have fewer opportunities to do so compared with all other undergraduates. “When you add the 12 weeks of Extra Mural Studies in the preclinical years to the 28 weeks in the later part of the course, the one week attendance at an abattoir, three weeks at Bristol working at the small animal hospital and the possibility of re-sits, there isn’t a lot of time left. Those students that can get paid work generally go back to the jobs that they had before coming to university and that is usually no more than about six hours a week.”
Even more costs However, any financial problems suffered by veterinary undergraduates are minor compared with those facing self-funding foreign students and those UK students that have already completed degrees in zoology, animal science, etc. They have to pay full tuition fees of more than £15,000 a year and their debt on qualification averages around £70,000. Not surprisingly, these UK postgraduates are the most enthusiastic supporters of the AVS’s demands for changes to the current system, Heather notes. But the Association has realistic expectations of what can be achieved in the immediate term. Heather says her colleagues accept that a campaign to eliminate tuition fees during the clinical years would be too ambitious in the current climate. But she feels students do have a good case in pressing for some funding to cover travel and living expenses during clinical EMS placements. Increasingly, she says students find that they have to turn down attractive and educationally valuable offers because of the costs involved.
Impact on the profession Unless something can be done to ameliorate the financial concerns of students, Heather believes the effects on veterinary school intakes will be serious in that only the offspring of supportive and well-off parents will be able to consider taking up a place at vet school. Moreover, it is also likely to exacerbate existing problems in providing large animal veterinary services. “My dream has always been to go into farm practice but with the combination of debts and the uncertain future of agriculture then I can see that I might have to reconsider,” she says. Yet, like most of her classmates, Heather is still convinced that she made the right choice in applying for a veterinary course. “If I’d known about the size of debt that I would be facing on graduation, then it is possible that I might have thought about doing something else. But I really don’t think it would have been enough to put me off, being a vet is something we have all wanted to do for a long time and we’ve worked very hard towards it. I suppose that we are resigned to the fact that paying off loans will take much longer than we thought and swallow up a much larger part of our salary.”
Article taken from the July 2007 issue of BSAVA News.
