The Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges (AAVMC) has introduced the newest version of its Cost Comparison Tool, a web-based interactive program that provides visitors with detailed information about tuition costs, scholarship resources and financing a veterinary medical education. The database includes information on all 30 accredited U.S. schools and 12 Canadian and international colleges.
“Higher education is an expensive proposition in today’s world, and educational debt has become a major national problem,” said AAVMC CEO Dr. Andrew T. Maccabe. “We’re committed to providing our applicants and students with the data they need to make informed and intelligent decisions about financing their professional education. Our CCT program is a powerful tool for helping them do that.”
The visualization presents the total cost of attendance (tuition, living expenses, and loan interest accumulation) for 2019 graduates. It includes data about whether students can establish residency for the purpose of paying discounted tuition and the average scholarship awards made to DVM students at each college.
This year’s version includes several updates and enhancements, according to AAVMC Senior Director for Institutional Research and Diversity Dr. Lisa Greenhill.
The visualization was expanded to include the total costs of earning a DVM degree for 2019 graduates and median debt levels for 2018 graduates were included. Efforts to increase visibility were also made by enlarging individual school “pop out” information on the map page, each of which provides a synopsis of data presented throughout the visualization.
A separate tab with data on 2018-2019 first-year tuition costs is also new for this year. This tab allows users to get a single-year view of tuition and project estimated total costs for new students.
Three tabs include sliders that allow users to filter the data by tuition costs, total costs and percentage of students receiving scholarship aid from the colleges.
In addition to tuition and related information, the map includes the average amount of institutional scholarship aid awarded to first year professional students, the percentage of students to whom it was awarded, the cost of living for each of the participating colleges and estimated loan interest accrued on a fully financed education.
The AAVMC is a nonprofit membership organization working to protect and improve the health and welfare of animals, people and the environment around the world by advancing academic veterinary medicine. Members include 49 accredited veterinary medical colleges in the United States, Canada, the Caribbean Basin, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Mexico.
