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This story is the third in a three-part series about new higher education institutions in Arkansas that are welcoming their first class of students or breaking ground on their schools in 2025. The first and second parts can be read here and here. The governor has said higher education will be a focus of the upcoming legislative session that begins Jan. 13.
Arkansas will soon increase access to veterinary medicine by training students at the state’s first two vet schools. Lyon College and Arkansas State University will both break ground this year on multimillion-dollar facilities, and each expects to welcome a class of 120 students in the fall of 2026, pending accreditation.
Arkansas is one of 22 states without an accredited vet school, so Arkansans wanting to train to become veterinarians have always had to travel out of state, said Dr. Eleanor Green, founding dean of Lyon College School of Veterinary Medicine.
“And what happens when they go out of state — really a lot of good vet schools, a lot of good experiences, no problem with that — but they often stay out of state and they don’t come home,” Green said.
ASU chose to create its own College of Veterinary Medicine because Arkansas is underserved when it comes to animal health needs, Dean Heidi Banse said.
According to the Arkansas Department of Agriculture, 10 of the state’s 75 counties lack a single veterinarian — Bradley, Calhoun, Cleveland, Dallas, Lafayette, Lee, Little River, Monroe, Nevada and Woodruff. Of the 1,183 veterinarians licensed in state, 728 are Arkansas practitioners, according to the agriculture department.
Nationally, up to 55,000 new vets will be needed to meet the projected demand in 2030, and the pace of new domestic and foreign veterinary graduates entering the workforce will leave a shortfall of up to 18% by the end of the decade, according to a 2023 Mars Veterinary Health report.
Accounting for more than a dozen vet schools coming online soon, including two in Arkansas, an October 2024 study from the American Veterinary Medical Association estimates the number of graduates from existing U.S. veterinary colleges is likely enough to meet the demand by 2035.
There’s been “a tremendous amount of enthusiasm” for creating veterinary education opportunities in Arkansas because people recognize its importance to the state and the future veterinary workforce, Banse said.
“We’re really excited to be able to support our animal health community and make sure that veterinary needs can be attended to, at least make sure it’s not a supply issue, that we’ve got enough people in the workforce to help attend to those needs,” she said.
In terms of supply, Banse said there have been issues with graduates not staying in the field long due to burnout and transitioning to positions that provide a better work-life balance. That balance can be particularly difficult for large animal vets in rural communities who have service areas that span hundreds of miles. More time on the road means longer days and fewer patients, which results in less money, she said.
On the demand side of the equation, Green said there’s been an increased need for services as more families become “pet parents” who want their “beloved animal” to receive the same level of care they do. This has allowed veterinary medicine to advance and provide better quality care, she said.
The COVID-19 pandemic also highlighted the important role of veterinarians in outbreaks that often start in animals and can have a huge impact on livestock. Avian influenza, for example, can affect the poultry industry, which is huge in Arkansas, she said. Poultry accounts for 40% of the state’s agricultural cash receipts and about 25% of agricultural jobs, according to Arkansas Farm Bureau.
To help meet the demand by graduating students into the field more quickly, Lyon College is offering a year-round program that can be completed in three years.
“Veterinary students would rather be veterinarians than students,” Green said. “They’re going to be students all their lives, but what a three-year program will do will allow them to start earning as a veterinarian earlier and that will help diminish their debt.”
Tuition and fees for Lyon College vet students will be $27,500 per trimester, and students will not be charged out-of-state tuition. The proposed tuition for ASU, which will offer a traditional four-year model, is $34,000 for Arkansas students and $54,000 for out-of-state tuition per academic year.
In addition to currently available scholarships, both schools are working to secure funding to further assist veterinary students. ASU announced its first endowed scholarship for veterinary students in December. Students are also eligible to apply for federal aid by completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form.
Training Models
Without an Arkansas-based school, Dr. Lindy O’Neal had to leave the state for her veterinarian education. She attended Louisiana State University, in part, because it offered nine Arkansas students in-state tuition. The Arkansas Veterinary Medical Association board president also selected LSU for its teaching hospital.
Instead of a teaching hospital model, both Lyon and ASU’s vet schools will offer a distributive model under which students will receive much of their clinical education at clinics in Arkansas and around the country.
There are pros and cons to both models, O’Neal said. The distributive model, for example, allows students to gain more experience with daily clinic work, but it can create more work for clinics providing the education than what might be required for a typical externship.
As the partner in two clinics in Rogers, O’Neal has signed on to work with both ASU and Lyon’s vet schools. O’Neal said she wants to be involved in the production of the next generation of vets, but she also wants to make sure it can be done well.
“If that pulls away from me being an efficient and attentive practicing veterinarian to my current clients, it may not be something we keep up,” she said.
While it will be “a privilege” to have veterinary education in the state, O’Neal said she’s not sure there’s room for two schools when roughly 100 Arkansas students apply for vet school annually and Lyon and ASU are poised to accept double that. She’s also concerned that more availability for in-state education might result in less funding for students who want to pursue education outside the state.
“It will be interesting to see how it all shakes out and if it does benefit Arkansas the way that we all hope that it will,” she said.
ASU will spend an estimated $33.2 million to build its 56,000 square-foot facility on its Jonesboro campus. The school will also use some of the more than 240 acres at the university farm for large animal laboratories, and Banse said she’s grateful to the College of Agriculture for being willing to share their resources.
Meanwhile, Lyon’s vet school will be in Cabot, about an hour south of the private college’s Batesville campus.
Lyon’s vet school will be located adjacent to the planned Cabot Animal Services Center and will have space for program expansion, according to a press release. The facility and equipment investment in the teaching campus, which will spread across 14 acres and include more than 100,000 square feet of educational facilities, will exceed $75 million, Director of College Communications Carol Langston said.
Students will be required to complete a rotation at the center, which Green said will be special because it’s the only vet school she knows of that will have a shelter program co-located with a hospital in it.
“It’ll be a terrific learning opportunity for the students and it’ll be a terrific shelter…I think this will be one of our signature programs of excellence at Lyon is shelter medicine,” she said.
Though there are still more hurdles to clear before opening the doors to students, Green is hopeful Lyon will create an innovative program.
“I’m really excited about the opportunity for this school to be very special, not only within Arkansas but also within the nation, and I’m hoping that it will be a model for modern veterinary education,” she said.
Lyon and ASU are still working through the accreditation process. Officials from both schools said they hope accreditors will conduct comprehensive visits in 2025 and then issue a letter of reasonable assurance so they can begin recruiting students for the fall of 2026.
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