Vet School Graduates Carry $200K+ Debt but Earn Half What MDs Make

Veterinary school graduates in the class of 2025 carry an average of $212,499 in student debt among those with debt, while 40% owe $200,000 or more and 6% owe over $400,000. Meanwhile, the median annual wage for veterinarians was $125,510 in 2024, compared to $272,320 for physicians -- roughly half the pay for a comparable length of graduate education and clinical training. This matters because the debt-to-income ratio for new veterinary graduates sits at 1.4:1, one of the worst among all doctoral professions. A physician with $250K in debt earning $275K can aggressively pay it down in 5-7 years. A veterinarian with $212K in debt earning $125K faces a fundamentally different math problem: after taxes, housing, and basic living expenses, the remaining income cannot service the debt at a pace that prevents interest from compounding. Many veterinarians will spend 20-25 years in income-driven repayment plans, paying more in total interest than their original principal. The downstream consequence is that veterinary medicine selects for wealth. Students who cannot rely on family financial support to subsidize their education are either deterred from entering the profession entirely or enter it shackled to debt that constrains every subsequent career decision -- where they practice, what species they treat, whether they can afford to serve underserved communities. The profession that is supposed to protect animal welfare and public health increasingly cannot attract or retain people unless they come from financially privileged backgrounds. This persists structurally because veterinary schools are funded through tuition rather than the residency-based training model that subsidizes much of medical education. Veterinary teaching hospitals generate far less clinical revenue than human hospitals, so schools cannot cross-subsidize education costs. And unlike human medicine, veterinary care has no equivalent of Medicare or Medicaid creating a floor of demand and reimbursement that would support higher salaries.