Texas Tech's building is going up, and they start classes this fall.
VERO opened last August. Students have been rotating through. I'm not in love with the exterior of the building but it's a really nice facility inside. Given the entirely of the Ag complex at WT and the Texas Diagnostic Laboratory which is right next door, and the additional facilities likely on the way, the VERO/WT complex is a pretty impressive counter to the Tech vet school.
These are two very different models. Tech is a full on vet school. Students will graduate from their pre-vet/biology/animal science programs all across the country and then apply (and probably get in
) to Tech's program.
VERO is really two programs. Texas A&M students who have gone through the same admissions program above at TAMU (although it will have been much harder for them to get in
), and then they will spend time at VERO in Canyon doing their large animal rotation.
Alternatively WT students will take pre-vet classes from DVM (and WT) faculty at the VERO center, and then will slide directly into vet school in a 2+2 program.
The latter is the one that has a chance to really deliver large animal vets to West Texas, which is the plank Tech used to sell their vet program to the Texas legislature, but which is unlikely to work. In Tech's model, the students are still going to bear a large debt when they graduate, and the economics of it will incentivize them doing the same thing that vets everywhere do to pay the bills take care of fluffy and Fido.
The 2+2 program between WT and A&M/VERO will be built on students from West Texas and the Panhandle, and will actually produce graduates with less debt who can therefor make good on their commitment to serving the large animal needs out here.
But the vet school in Amarillo is actually good for Amarillo but probably not the best thing for the state of Texas, though. It also places A&M's DVM program in a position of having to battle Tech for state resources. But those are an increasingly small percentage of operations, and I think A&M will do fine with a new competitor in the market.
