Murray State’s dream of offering a Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine is one step closer to becoming a reality. On March 13, 2025, the Kentucky General Assembly passed Senate Bill 77, which amended statute KRS 164.295 to allow the University to offer a DVM. Murray State now seeks to establish the first veterinary school of medicine in the state of Kentucky.
Laura Ken Hoffman, department head and associate professor of the veterinary technology and pre-veterinary medicine program, said a vet school in Kentucky could make the opportunity to pursue veterinary medicine a reality for many students.
“I have had several prospective students reach out to say that they wanted to go to vet school but didn’t want to move out of state to do so,” Hoffman said. “They may have other family commitments that would keep them here in Kentucky. This could open the door for them to now live out their dream.”
While there is a national shortage of large animal veterinarians, Kentucky’s shortage is even greater, with only 3 percent of Kentucky veterinarians offering dedicated large animals practices, according to the Kentucky Department of Agriculture.
Until now, any pre-vet students looking to pursue a DVM had to go out of state. Brian Parr, dean of the Hutson School of Agriculture, said one of the hopes for this new vet school is to keep talented veterinary students in Kentucky.
“When we tell the high school kids of Kentucky that if they want to be a veterinarian, go to Murray State—we get a lot of first generation students from this area,” Parr said. “But after you finish there (you have to go out of state) … I think it shuts the door on a bunch of rural students.”
Many Kentucky veterinary students try to get accepted into one of the nearest DVM programs at Auburn University, a public institution that accepts 38 DVM students from Kentucky every year, Parr said. But students attending vet schools at out-of-state private universities can owe as much as $100,000 a year, which Parr said forces students to move away to areas where they can make more money. He said the aim of an affordable in-state vet school is to allow graduates to stay and help their local communities.
“I think it will be good for our students and for our state and for our University as well,” Parr said. “This is a big scale type of a degree that will bring students from not just across the state, but we’ll get a lot of applications for those out of state students as well who may have not known about Murray State before, but we know it’s a great place.”
Parr said seeing Senate Bill 77 passed was an “absolutely emotional” experience.
“Most people don’t see the emails and the texts and the phone calls that I get from students and parents,” Parr said. “I get maybe even more from parents than students (about how) this has been just such a barrier to their kids before. We’ve gone from, ‘it’s just not even an option’ to now; ‘it’s not just an option, it’s a good option that’s here, close by.’”
Parr said next steps will include presenting material to the Council on Postsecondary Education to get the DVM program approved and working on the vet school building design. The University has already secured $60 million in funding to build the building, which will be built on College Farm Road.
“We’re moving forward, I think, at a very rapid rate, to see this thing built and open,” Parr said. “Kind of the goal, and this may be a lofty goal, is to admit students into the vet school three years from this fall. So three years from now, we’ll be letting students know whether they’re accepted into vet school or not. We’ll have 70 slots, and we anticipate reserving 50 of those slots for in-state Kentucky students, because that’s really in my heart. That’s why we wanted to do this.”
Parr spoke to high school students from the Purchase Region FFA organization who were on Murray State’s campus competing last week. Many of the students had been following Senate Bill 77’s progress on social media. He said the chance to talk to them about a future in Murray State’s DVM program was beyond rewarding.
“To be able to talk to those students and say, ‘Look, you’re a junior or senior in high school. This is probably going to fall just at the time that you would be finishing up, or getting ready to finish up, an undergraduate degree to start vet school here at Murray State.’… I mean, I’m so, so happy.”
