Careers: Has the post-university job dearth and debt crisis hit even ...

veterinarian neutering a pet cat/US Navy

So says?law professor William D. Henderson, pointing to Dr. Andrew Clark, who runs a consulting business for veterinary doctors.

Dr. Clark, who has a DVM and an MBA, notes,

From my position in the industry, in the economy in which we all work, the demand for veterinary services appears smaller than the supply of veterinarians. I routinely look at the financial statements of over 50 veterinary practices; equine, mixed and companion animal. Those financial statements demonstrate that practices do not generate enough profit to pay Veterinarians sufficiently to repay student loans under the repayment terms commonly available. That is a remarkably bad situation since the successful transfer of the Veterinary Profession from one generation to another is dependent upon the next generation being solvent and content.

One reason he fingers is too great a supply of new veterinarians, and the reasons are a cautionary tale:

When the dust all settles, Veterinary Colleges are in the business of selling Veterinary Medical Degrees to students who buy a degree with the intention of using it to make a living. In the age of austerity, Veterinary colleges have faced massive budget cuts. One response has been to increase class size, generating tuition revenue for the school. In effect, the colleges are generating more customers for their product and increasing the supply of veterinarians. From my perspective and experience, the veterinary profession is upside down as far as supply and demand goes. We have inadequate demand for Veterinary services to support the number of veterinarians in practice. Increasing class size diminishes the earning potential and therefore the value of a Veterinary Medical degree yet the cost of the degree continues to escalate. That strategy only works for schools because student loans are easy to acquire and young consumers following their life?s dream are still willing to borrow the money to purchase the degree at an ever higher price with challenging terms. The cost of the Veterinary degree goes up while the value of a veterinary degree goes down and students continue to purchase degrees on borrowed money.

Ominously,

Bankruptcy on student loans used to be a big loss for lenders. However, under the new regulations, student loans cannot be discharged by bankruptcy so there is significantly less risk now.

In short, there is little incentive from within the system to warn the student that the dream might be a mirage?where nothing turns out to be real except the debt.

Henderson adds,

Suffice to say, what is happening in the veterinary education, and the broader vet industry, is eerily close to the problems in legal education and the legal profession.

More on that later.

An underlying problem may be that companion animals are a discretionary expense. We want them, but we don?t ?need? them to live. A prolonged decline in fulltime employment in a rust belt may mean that people either do not acquire as many of them or do not spend on them what they otherwise would.

None of this need discourage the determined student in principle. The student must realize two things: Veterinary practice is a business as well as a profession, and the proceeds from the practice must sustain both the vet?s living expenses and any debt incurred. Therefore, some careful research is needed about whether, when, and where these conditions can be met. Second, not all sources of advice in this area are of equal value, for the reasons that Dr. Clark has indicated. There is no substitute for personal, on-the-ground research when taking such a big step as going into student loan debt for a career you love.

Source: http://www.thebestschools.org/bestschoolsblog/2013/01/01/careers-post-university-job-dearth-debt-crisis-hit-veterinarians/

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