Winter 2025

119th Congress sworn in and President Trump Inaugurated

The new Members of Congress were sworn in on January 3, and President Trump was inaugurated for the second time on Jan. 20. AAVMC welcomes the new Administration and the new Congress.


AAVMC sent this introductory one-pager to all new Members to get our priorities in front of them as soon as possible.


The new Administration began quickly with a raft of Executive Orders signed into law in the first few days. Those can be found here.


While we are still examining the impact of these orders, many of them are of particular concern, including those related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as immigration. AAVMC will work with our coalition partners and the larger higher education community to evaluate the impact of these orders and respond accordingly.

Senate Agriculture Committee Confirmation Hearing

On January 23, the Senate Agriculture Committee held a confirmation hearing for Brooke Rollins, the nominee to be Secretary of Agriculture. Kevin Cain attended the hearing, which went smoothly without controversy. Rollins, a graduate of Texas A&M, is expected to be confirmed with little to no opposition.


January 17, 2025: Opening of Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program (VMLRP) Fiscal Year 2025 Application Cycle


The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program (VMLRP) announces the opening of the fiscal year (FY) 2025 application cycle. NIFA anticipates that approximately $10 million in funding will be available in FY25 to help mitigate food animal veterinary service shortages in the United States. VMLRP helps qualified veterinarians offset a significant portion of the debt incurred in pursuit of their veterinary medical degrees in return for their service in certain high-priority veterinary shortage areas. 

 

The VMLRP supports NIFA’s Animal Systems portfolio by facilitating professional workforce development in critical agricultural sectors related to animal health and well-being. The program contains two general categories of participation:  

  • Mitigation of private veterinary practice shortage situations.  
  • Mitigation of public veterinary practice and specialty veterinary discipline shortage situations. 

 

VMLRP awardees commit to providing at least three years of food animal veterinary services in a designated veterinary shortage area in return for payments of up to $40,000 of student loan debt per year with a maximum of $120,000 for a three-year contract. VMLRP awardees are eligible to reapply to continue to serve their originally awarded shortage situation area in the last year of their contract or one year after their contract ends.  

 

The VMLRP Request for Applications (RFA) and the 2025 veterinary shortage situations are now available. The deadline for Letter of Intent (LOI) is March 31, 2025, and the application deadline is April 11, 2025. Renewal applicants must have a start date of January 1, 2022 (FY 2021) or January 1, 2023 (FY 2022) to apply for a FY2025 award.

 

We will send out a separate announcement when the Technical Assistance webinar for this RFA is scheduled. This information will also be posted to the VMLRP Request for Applications (RFA) page.

  

Please refer to the VMLRP Annual Report for more information about the program.  



Questions about the VMLRP application process may be sent by email to VMLRP.applications@USDA.gov 

Proposed Budget Cuts


House Republicans circulated a list of proposed “options” for potential budget cuts as a part of the upcoming reconciliation package. Under the rules of reconciliation, only policies affecting revenue and spending can be considered, and the final legislation only requires a majority vote in the House and is not subject to a filibuster in the Senate. The list can be found here


Among many items of concern in this document are cuts to student loan and student aid programs, including caps on the Grad Plus program and on the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program. AAVMC will be working with all of our higher education colleagues to combat these efforts.

Funding talks begin ahead of the March 14 deadline


The current Continuing Resolution (CR) funding the federal government expires on March 14. Serious discussions are underway to reach an agreement for FY 2025 funding, as well as an attempt to raise the debt ceiling and fund emergency priorities such as rebuilding from the wildfires.


More on this movement can be found here.

Advocacy Letters



The AAVMC continues to work closely with a wide array of organizations that share our interests in advancing academic veterinary medicine, food security, and public health. The letters below reflect some of that recent activity.


AAVMC Government Affairs



Please contact: Kevin Cain, Senior Director for Governmental Affairs at kcain@aavmc.org or 202-371-9195 (ext. 117) with any comments, questions or suggestions about our program.

AAVMC Newsletters


The AAVMC is working hard to create a culture of diversity and inclusion in every dimension of academic veterinary medicine. To foster this goal, the photographs and illustrations which are used in our communications programs are aspirational, and do not necessarily reflect the levels of diversity and inclusion that currently exist.


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