The state of New York has announced that it will partially fund the establishment of a school of veterinary medicine at Long Island University. There has never been a veterinary program in the New York metropolitan area, though the highly regarded program at Cornell University (about a four hour drive from the city) has served the state well. The LIU veterinary school will join Cornell, Tufts University, and the University of Pennsylvania as the only veterinary programs in the Northeast.
The state has pledged $12 million towards the estimated $40 million construction cost of the new LIU veterinary campus. The school plans to break ground in late 2018 for a projected September 2019 opening. Approximately 100 students will be selected for the first veterinary class, and the school will also create at least 100 staff positions.
There has been a flurry of activity in veterinary education over the past five years. Many established vet schools (including UC Davis, Cornell, Texas A&M, Purdue, and the University of Georgia) have either announced or recently completed multi-million dollar upgrades to their facilities. There has also been a push to add new programs to the list of accredited vet schools, which currently stands at 30 after the recent additions of both Midwestern University (Arizona) and Lincoln Memorial University (Tennessee) in 2014. In addition to the new LIU veterinary program, other institutions planning to establish vet schools in the near future include Texas Tech and the University of Arizona.
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