Renderings of Clemson University veterinary school facilities (Provided by LS3P + Flad)
Clemson University has broken ground on South Carolina’s first veterinary college with more than $230 million in funding from the state Legislature. But getting the new school started on time in fall 2026 goes beyond the physical buildings.
It requires recruiting a team of faculty that will train students and conduct research, as well as passing muster for national accreditation at a time when a flurry of other schools also are vying to open.
Until recently, new veterinary colleges were a rarity. For one, they’re expensive to establish.
“There are schools that have tried. Clemson has wanted to do this for quite some time,” Steven Marks, the founding dean of Clemson’s vet school, told the SC Daily Gazette. “There’s a fair price tag to start this up.”
South Carolina’s expected return on its investment: Producing the next generation of veterinarians that can serve the state, Marks said.
For these schools, the cost of facilities and faculty add up. Yet they serve a limited number of students accepted into programs compared to other career fields.
When it comes to construction, Colorado State University, which has been training veterinarians for more than a century, is spending $230 million to build a new vet school complex. The project is scheduled to open in 2026. The cost of starting a vet school with a teaching hospital at Murray State University in Kentucky is estimated at about $240 million.
And when it comes to operating costs, the vet school at Auburn University, the oldest vet school in the South, has $93 million in annual expenses. It is expected to operate at a loss, according to the latest budget documents.
That’s a cost of about $180,000 per student, compared to the $25,000 per student the school spends on its large engineering program. Operating expenses at North Carolina State University’s vet school are between $115 million and $120 million, or nearly $300,000 per student, documents show.
But recently, an anticipated need for more veterinarians has spurred a multitude of new and proposed veterinary colleges.
Clemson is one of a dozen seeking to open a new vet school, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association, which accredits them.
The University of Arizona, Long Island University and Texas Tech University enrolled their first classes in 2020 and 2021. And both Lincoln Memorial University in Tennessee and Midwestern University in Arizona enrolled inaugural classes in 2014. Before that, it had been nearly three decades since the association accredited a new school.
If all of them are successful, that would bring the total number of accredited vet schools in the U.S. to 45.
Meanwhile, estimates on the need for more veterinarians vary.
Clemson, in its feasibility study, cited a report from Banfield Pet Hospital, the nation’s largest practice with more than 1,000 locations, including clinics inside PetSmart stores. It predicts a shortage of 15,000 vets in 2030.
South Carolina has more than 2,700 licensed veterinarians and more than 900 technicians, according to the state licensing board. That’s up from more than 1,700 vets and 380 technicians a decade earlier.
“There’s been a shortage of veterinarians for a long time. so now the profession is trying to catch up,” Marks said.
Yet a 2024 study commissioned by the American Veterinary Medicine Association shows that graduates from existing U.S. veterinary colleges are likely enough to meet demand through 2035. And while demand surged during the COVID-19 pandemic, with increased retirements and more people buying pets, those rates have since returned to normal. The study predicts the population of veterinarians is now likely to grow faster than pet-owning households if all proposed schools become accredited.
So, it will be up to Clemson to set itself apart.
Marks hopes to accomplish that in a number of ways.
Traditional veterinary schools have a teaching hospital. Clemson will use what’s known as a partially distributed model, sending the majority of students to work with community veterinarians throughout South Carolina for clinical training.
“We want our students to be trained a little bit differently than veterinarians have been trained in the last 20 years,” Marks said. “I think Clemson has an opportunity to be a unique training program that will fit what this generation is looking for.”
Marks also hopes to motivate more students to work in rural areas treating livestock.
The typical vet student tends to want to work with household pets and live in an urban area. And the field is dominated by women, Marks said.
Meanwhile, in 2024 the U.S. Department of Agriculture had designated shortages in two rural service areas, covering 12 of South Carolina’s 46 counties. They are located along the Georgia border and in the Upstate, including the counties that are home to Clemson University.
“We would like to attract a more diverse set of students. The goal will be to reach out to these underserved areas and recruit students from those areas,” Marks said.
While enrolled, students will work stints in a mobile veterinary clinic run by the school, as well as in a school-run clinic serving lower-income families that may not be able to afford vet services for their pets. Marks would like to work with Clemson’s nursing school, deploying the mobile vet hospital alongside the nursing college’s community health events.
“In theory, taking care of people and their animals simultaneously,” Marks said.
Marks said students can also expect to work hands-on with animals much earlier in their college career than has been traditionally done at other, existing veterinary colleges. The students will start out handling animals kept at Clemson’s agricultural college facilities — horses, dairy and beef cattle, sheep and poultry.
Finally, Marks would like to involve Clemson’s program for intellectually disabled students, known as Clemson Life, with the vet school, offering training that would allow them to become veterinary assistants.
SC college programs provide a path to independent living for students with disabilities
For now, Clemson is in the process of recruiting staff and undergoing accreditation.
Marks has two associate deans and a department chair and is interviewing for six other positions, including admissions, an anatomist and a physiologist.
“I have people contacting me asking if there are jobs available,” he said. “So, people are knocking on our door.”
“At most existing veterinary schools, if you go to work there, you get plugged into a pre-existing machine. You get plugged into a slot. This is an opportunity to have a clean slate and to come in do innovative teaching, innovative research,” Marks added. “We are a new school with new ideas and a new vision.”
The college is awaiting a date for a site visit from the American Veterinary Medical Association as part of the accreditation process. Marks did not yet know how far out that visit might be scheduled.
If it goes well, Clemson could receive what’s called a letter of reasonable assurance, allowing the school to begin recruiting and enrolling students. Full accreditation could take four more years beyond that, based on timelines of the most recently accredited schools.
Marks expects to enroll 80 students — 60 South Carolinians and 20 from other states — to begin classes in fall 2026.
The state has contracts for up to 46 new students each year to attend veterinary colleges at the University of Georgia, Mississippi State and Tuskegee University in Alabama at an in-state rate. Last school year, the state spent upwards of $5 million for 150 South Carolinians to enroll or re-enroll. Officials at Clemson estimate 200 more South Carolina students pay full price to attend other vet schools across the country.
That funding will be phased out once the new school opens, Marks said.