Since 1951 Auburn University’s School of Veterinary Medicine has offered in-state tuition to a handful of Kentucky students, but after budget cuts in Kentucky the program faces uncertainty.
The program is a contract with the Kentucky Council of Post-Secondary Education and the Southern Regional Education Board. It offers 36 students in-state tuition with the difference paid by Kentucky.
“Since Kentucky does not have a college of veterinary medicine, Kentucky currently contracts for 36 entering spaces — 34 at Auburn University and two at Tuskegee University,” according to the Kentucky Council on Post-Secondary Education's website.
After the Kentucky Legislature decided to make the budget cuts, Auburn could only guarantee in-state tuition to 22 of the 38 students from Kentucky who applied.
“We are working closely with the Kentucky Council on Post-secondary Education as they deal with financial constraints of the recent biannual budget for Kentucky,” said Dan Givens, the associate dean of academic affairs at Auburn University’s College of Veterinary Medicine.
“As with any collaborative relationship, individuals within the relationship may face challenging situations during which collaborative partners must seek to accommodate and appropriately facilitate the relationship.”
The Kentucky Legislature meets every two years, so the budget beyond 2018 is still unclear, but Auburn University was able to find scholarships to pay for the tuition difference for the 2016-2017 class, and they hope to be able to do the same for the 2017-2018 class.
Givens said he in no way predicts that the partnership will come to an end, and the school is working with Kentucky and its students to still be able to send students to Auburn.
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