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Roseman University of Health Sciences photo

Located in Henderson, Nevada, just south of Las Vegas, Roseman University of Health Sciences aims to open a veterinary school.

States want their own veterinary schools, judging by recent efforts to start new programs in the United States. The latest aspirant is Nevada, where Roseman University of Health Sciences announced this week that it has notified the country's accreditor of veterinary education that it intends to initiate planning for a program.

Roseman joins nine other institutions that are developing schools, five of which would be firsts in the states of Arkansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Montana and South Carolina. Two other firsts for states, at Rowan University in New Jersey and Utah State University, will seat their inaugural classes later this year.

Another state might also join the club. Lawmakers in Hawaii in April approved creating a working group to study the feasibility of a veterinary school at a community college on the island of Oahu.

There are 34 operating veterinary schools in the U.S. and its territories. Four of those have opened since 2019. They are at Ana G. Méndez University in Puerto Rico, Long Island University in New York, Texas Tech University and the University of Arizona.

Roseman, a private, nonprofit institution, was founded in 1999 and has two campuses in Nevada and one in Utah. The veterinary school would be located in Henderson, a city just south of Las Vegas. It would partner with locations offsite to provide clinical training, an arrangement known as the distributed model.

The school said in a news release that it does not have a projected opening date. It did not give an estimated class size.

Roseman's announcement cited a "well-documented" need for veterinarians in the region as a driving force behind developing the program.

"Urban areas face long wait times for appointments, and rural regions often lack access to veterinary care entirely, affecting not only companion animals but also livestock, public health, and food safety," the announcement states.

It quotes the founding dean, Dr. Katherine Fogelberg, as saying: "Our goal is to create a veterinary program that is not only academically rigorous but also deeply mission-driven. We want to train veterinarians who are equipped to serve all communities — urban and rural, pets and livestock, locally and nationally."

Fogelberg earned a DVM from Texas A&M University and has a master's in educational leadership and a doctorate in science education. An Army veteran, she has more than a decade of clinical experience in small animal general and emergency practice. Fogelberg did not respond to a request from the VIN News Service for an interview.

The announcement of another new program comes at what is a fraught time for veterinary education generally.

There are questions about whether new programs will be able to attract and retain faculty in an already tight marketplace. Research from the American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges showed 474 funded and unfilled faculty positions in 2023.

Another unknown is how proposed changes to federal student loan programs in the budget reconciliation bill that is moving through the U.S. Congress might impact future students' ability or willingness to borrow for a veterinary education. In 2024, eight out of 10 new veterinary school graduates reported having debt. The average debt topped $200,000.