Should You Take Out Private Student Loans for Vet School? Here’s the Math

Should you take out private student loans for vet school? What’s the return on investment (ROI) of the degree, and can you trust the numbers your prospective program is sharing with you? After consulting with over a thousand veterinarians on six-figure vet school loans over the past 10 years, we have data to help inform your decision about how and whether to borrow for vet school.We will look at income ranges, talk about the vet school debt load, and explore options to consider for private borrowing.Income as a veterinarian: Does it justify the student loans? Before you borrow six figures of vet school debt, you need to understand what vets actually earn.Here’s the income stats from the 556 veterinarians in our 2025 survey of Student Loan Planner readers: PercentileVeterinarian income10th$90,00025th$116,500Average$145,25775th$170,00090th$200,000 Average vet school debt The average student debt reported in our survey for vet school was $264,432.

The best way to compare ROI in this case is to look at what you would have earned with only a bachelor’s degree.For context, a typical bachelor's degree holder earns roughly $65,000 to $80,000 per year in after-tax income.That's the number you want to keep in mind as we walk through the vet school math below.Analyzing the ROI of vet school borrowing The cost of vet school depends on where you go.

Take a look at the YouTube video below showing a detailed analysis of borrowing for UPenn’s vet school program (which represents any high-cost private school) vs.North Carolina State (representing a low-cost public program).Attending a program like UPenn would require borrowing roughly $372,000 total, including about $43,000 per year in private student loans.  At an average veterinarian income of $145,000, your after-tax, after-loan-payment take-home pay would be around $65,000 per year — roughly the same as someone with just a bachelor's degree.And that's at an average income, which most new grads won't hit right away.

Early in your career, you could realistically be taking home less than a bachelor's degree earner.At a school like NC State, the total cost of attendance is around $50,000 per year, which is close to the federal borrowing limit.That means you'd need little to no private student loan borrowing.  At an average vet income, your take-home after taxes and student loan payments comes out to about $95,000 — roughly $30,000 more than a bachelor's degree holder.Even at a 10th-percentile income, you're roughly breaking even compared to a bachelor's degree, but with more job stability and satisfaction.

And once the loans are paid off, you start taking home significantly more.When to borrow private student loans for vet school If your dream is to become a veterinarian and you don’t get into any public universities, then borrowing private student loans to attend a private school is financially survivable in most cases.However, it’s true that early in your career, if you borrow private student loans for vet school, you would likely be worse off financially than if you had not gone at all, at least in the first several years.In contrast, if you attend a public vet school, you will likely be better off financially than if you had just stopped at a bachelor’s degree, and you will likely be taking home more money right away compared to a bachelor’s degree job.

Many public university vet schools would not require students to take on much private debt, given federal borrowing limits of about $50,000 per year.In contrast, private university vet schools will likely be mostly private student loan funded unless tuition levels take a sharp drop.It’s important to realize that even though private vet schools are not a good financial investment, it’s okay not to make everything about the finances, as long as a financial decision wouldn’t be devastating.If you decide to borrow private student loans to attend vet school, minimize costs wherever possible, and make sure the dream is worth living at a lower standard of living than you could.

How vet school borrowing used to work It used to be that you could take out federal student loans up to the full cost of attendance and repay just 10% of your income through income-driven repayment (IDR) plans, no matter how much debt you accrued.With that math, if you subtract 10% of your income as a veterinarian and it is more than what you would have made with a bachelor’s degree, then going to vet school made sense.Pretend you make $150,000 and lose $15,000 to IDR payments each year.That net income of $135,000 is more than most folks would make with a bachelor’s degree.

So the $350,000 DVM degree from a private university made economic sense under this old model.The new model means most DVMs need to pay back loans With the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), federal borrowing limits are now lower, which means most veterinarians will need to plan on paying back their loans in full With the Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP) now lasting 30 years for private-sector veterinarians, forgiveness becomes mathematically irrelevant for most veterinarians under these new borrowing rules.Paying 10% of income for 30 years simply wipes out most of someone’s student loan balance, leaving little left to forgive.When looking at the math, low-cost vet school programs still make financial sense.

Many vet students could borrow modest amounts of private vet school loans from a place like Student Loan Planner that shows you rates from multiple lenders and still be fine.If vet school is not what you’ve wanted to do your whole life, going under this new loan regime is a very risky proposition.It will still result in good jobs for most students who choose to attend (and can secure financing).Prospective vet students can and should attend and should feel comfortable borrowing private student loans, so long as it’s to attend a low-cost public school.

If you attend a private school, just make sure you don’t have any other financial dreams, because if you do, you might regret it.That might sound too pessimistic, but it’s important to realize the new borrowing system creates a new reality about the finances of vet school.You’re making a smart decision, thinking this over carefully.Getting help with how to borrow for vet school If you need help figuring out how to best borrow for vet school, you can book a consultation with our team of experts at Student Loan Planner.

We’d love to help you weigh the pros and cons of various options, discuss different borrowing strategies, and look at your long-term goals in helping you make the best decision for your potential career path as a veterinarian.