TTU School of Veterinary Medicine to Begin Accepting Applications

Texas Tech University’s new School of Veterinary Medicine has made plans to begin accepting and processing student applications after it received a Letter of Reasonable Assurance from the American Veterinary Medical Association.

According to a press release from Texas Tech University, the School of Veterinary Medicine is currently under construction in Amarillo, Texas and will be completed in time for students to begin classes in the fall of 2021.

Texas Tech first started to promote the idea of a new veterinary school in 2015 after previous attempts had failed. The only university-level veterinary school currently operating in Texas is the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine, first established in 1916.

In an article published in the Texas Tribune by Matthew Choi in 2018, the Dean of the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine, Eleanor Green, called Tech’s plans for a new vet school “. . . completely redundant,” and that it would ultimately lead to a drain on state funding.

However, Texas Tech University and others have argued that one veterinary school is not enough to meet the demands of rural Texas, and that many potential students had left the state to pursue their veterinary education elsewhere.

In June of 2019, the Texas legislature allocated $17 million dollars to Texas Tech for the construction of a new veterinary school. That, combined with more than $90 million in private donations, led to the groundbreaking of TTU’s School of Veterinary Medicine back in September of 2019.

TTU’s School of Veterinary Medicine is currently being built in Amarillo and Tech has been slowly establishing a team of more than 30 educators and staff members.

On September 22, 2020, Texas Tech officially announced it would start accepting student applications. Orientation for the first inaugural class of the new vet school is currently scheduled for August 9, 2021.