If you are a Veterinary student in the United States, you have likely heard about the veterinarian shortage facing rural America. It seems that, throughout school, we are inundated with information regarding scholarships, loan forgiveness plans, and grants to inspire us to pursue production animal medicine in these shortage areas. Right now, the USDA is even offering the Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program: a program that will pay up to $40,000 per year of a Veterinary student’s loans for practicing production animal medicine primarily in shortage areas (The Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program). Additionally, practice ownership, even in non-shortage, urban areas, tends to be profitable, even without access to rural medicine grants and scholarships, with the average small animal practice bringing in $1.6 million in revenue in 2025 (McCullock et al.). These factors are undoubtedly playing into the high interest in practice ownership that we are starting to see. Unfortunately, the path to practice ownership is unclear and has some barriers that need to be addressed if we are going to fill the rural Veterinary shortage.
In 2024, a survey conducted by the AVMA showed that 50.4% of current Veterinary students and new graduates aspired to own a practice someday (Compton et al.). This was much higher than I expected, and it inspired me to dig into the statistics a bit more. From what I saw, it is incredibly difficult to tell with certainty if overall ownership interest is increasing or decreasing, but it is expected to decrease in the future. California saw interest in ownership decrease by more than half from 2013 to 2022, but there has not been much research into this trend otherwise (O’Shaughnessy et al.). Consistently, surveys show that VBMA members, men, and students interested in mixed animal practice are much more likely to be interested in practice ownership (Compton et al.). Anecdotally, the most common reasons I hear that students are not interested in practice ownership have to do with work-life balance, familial obligations, and finances. That same AVMA study, and others that I have read over the years, have shown that business owners have a higher satisfaction with their job, lifestyle, compensation, and quality of life than associates, so perhaps some of the difference in interest is due to a belief that practice owners cannot have a work-life balance.
Veterinary students have access to various resources on business ownership before graduation. Some schools offer dual, concurrent MBA programs that let students graduate with both a DVM and an MBA. Others, like the Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine, offer services through a Center for Veterinary Business and Entrepreneurship that, with the help of their College of Business, offers education and research to their students and graduates. The University of Florida even offers the Veterinary Business Management Certificate, a program that offers a unique curriculum that ends with a nationally recognized certification. Students who receive this certification are significantly more likely to go on and own a practice later in their career, and those who don’t still learn skills that are valuable as an associate (Carey). For students at schools that focus less on business education, there are still other opportunities available! The Veterinary Business Management Association is a national organization that has chapters in the vast majority of American Veterinary schools. The chapter at my school is very active and has bimonthly meetings that help students learn about things like personal finance, business finance, and leadership. These have been very helpful for me personally and have helped teach me about the importance of mentorship. Speaking of mentorship, finding a veterinarian who owns a successful practice is super helpful in your education. They can help you through Veterinary school, provide opportunities during and after vet school, and provide valuable advice as you prepare to purchase and run your own practice. I found great mentorship during my summer externships, which taught me a lot and has already helped me start thinking through my path to eventual practice ownership. Of all of the resources available, mentorship is the most important for long-term guidance.
Vet school is very specialized in teaching students how to be clinicians, researchers, and communicators, but it treats the business side as something very optional. Currently, with rural medicine facing such a shortage, education on practice ownership is needed to serve these underserved areas. While many great resources exist, there is room for improvement from universities. For one, students should be exposed to more practice owners in their day-to-day education. Most professors are extremely knowledgeable clinicians or researchers for the university and may have decades of experience in private practice. Most, however, have little experience actually starting and running a business. Oklahoma State University just got a new dean of the vet school who has been a practice owner for decades, and I think this is going to be great for encouraging students to pursue business ownership. I hope to see many other talented owners come on as adjunct professors to help students learn about ownership and how what we learn medically can be applied as an owner. I think that Veterinary schools should routinely offer electives and labs where students practice scenarios as an owner. The Merck VetSim competition, a contest where teams of students from different schools run a clinic in an AI-powered scenario, was an amazing experience for me and allowed me to practice leveraging things like debt to receive long-term financial gains. A lab that incorporated something similar could be a fantastic way to encourage ownership and show students the potential profitability of such a venture. Addressing barriers, real or perceived, that exist for Veterinary students to start a business is something that vet schools need to prioritize if they are going to be successful. If people are scared to take on business debt because they already have hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans, addressing that common barrier could be a huge unlock that allows Veterinary students to move into areas that don’t have any veterinarians at all. After all, I am extremely interested in practice ownership, but taking out business loans after getting out of Veterinary school is the primary source of any hesitation I have about owning a practice, and I am not sure how to address it. Surveys repeatedly show that women are much less likely than men to be interested in ownership, so it would be a good idea for Veterinary schools to find out why and address that as the Veterinary industry becomes increasingly female. Scholarships are great for encouraging behavior, but given that lots of scholarship money goes unclaimed by students who favor going into urban companion animal practice, it doesn’t seem to be enough. Ownership is a tricky thing to learn in school, but I have no doubt that vet schools are capable of effectively giving students the tools they need to feel more comfortable trying entrepreneurship.
There is a real interest in practice ownership in current or recent vet students. This is a great sign that the rural Veterinary shortage is a solvable problem and that practices may be purchased, built, and/or improved in these areas going forward. While finances are often cited as a source of hesitation by students, I think that lack of education, and the lack of confidence that results, is playing a larger role. If vet schools implement solutions, like emphasizing business education in their curriculum or having faculty that are current or previous owners, it could change the perception of ownership by students. I hope that, as universities spend a lot of resources improving their medical education, and as more vet schools pop up, some of those resources can be allocated to help prepare interested students to be owners.
REFERENCES:
Carey, Sarah. “UF’s Veterinary Business Management Certificate Program Thrives in First 10 Years “.” UF | The Veterinary Page, Veterinarypage.vetmed.ufl.edu/2024/04/09/ufs-Veterinary-business-management-certificate-program-thrives-in-first-10-years/. Accessed 29 Oct. 2026.
Compton, Lauren, et al. “Practice ownership aspirations among Veterinary students and recent graduates are influenced by autonomy, perceived responsibility, and career interests.” American Journal of Veterinary Research, vol. 87, no. 7, 1 July 2026, https://doi.org/10.2460/ajvr.26.02.0047.
McCullock, Katelyn, et al. 2026 AVMA Report on the Economic State of the Veterinary Profession, Jan. 2026.
O’Shaughnessy, Molly, et al. “2022 Economic Issues Survey of California DVMs and RVTs.” California Veterinary Medical Association, Aug. 2022.
“The Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program.” National Institute of Food and Agriculture, www.nifa.usda.gov/grants/programs/Veterinary-medicine-loan-repayment-program. Accessed 29 Oct. 2026.