Sen. Jerry Moran is concerned about education costs for K-State veterinary students.
After completing a tour of facilities at the K-State College of Veterinary Medicine with Food and Drug Administration Deputy Commissioner Michael Taylor Friday morning, Moran — one of two Republicans representing Kansas in the U.S. Senate — said the morning was important to highlight the balance of scientific research and efficient application.
The tour — which was closed to the media — focused on microbiology and antibiotic susceptibility testing.
But there was another issue that had Moran’s concern: the high costs of school, high probabilities of debt because of it and relatively mild wages awaiting graduating students in the industry.
“The thing that is troublesome to me,” Moran said, “is the tremendous expense there is to educate a veterinarian, the significant amount of debt a veterinary medical student has upon graduation, the rather modest salaries that are paid for a new veterinarian — and at a time in which food safety is so important to the consumer but also to the producer, those two things coming together, huge amounts of debt and not significant amounts of income, mean that we have a challenge in educating and training the next generation of veterinarian medicine.
“The average debt of a veterinary student upon graduation is about $180,000 and the beginning salary average — and these are national numbers — is about $65-68,000.”
Dr. Tammy Beckham, the dean of the college of vet-med at KSU, laughed when asked if there was ever a future that included decreasing tuition costs.
“Complex question,” she said. “This is a little bit different degree than an undergraduate degree. They need the hands-on experience, they need the laboratories, they need hands over the animals, the clinicians are spending time with them out in the field — we have to produce practice-ready veterinarians and in order to that, there’s a cost associated with that.”
Beckham added that it may be up to the professional community to help.
“We as a profession have to step back and say, ‘How do we help these students with their student loan debt? How do we find other methods to help them off-set the cost of that tuition so they can get a quality education and get out and pay those loans back, or have less loans when they graduate?”
Moran also visited Great Bend Friday afternoon and toured Great Bend Feeding, Inc., where he and Taylor observed cattle, feed products and a micro-machine room where various drugs and micro nutrients are added, according to a press release from his office.
NUSS FILES COMPLAINT
The Wichita Eagle reported Friday that Moran’s campaign has re-filed a campaign finance report with the Federal Election Commission after Manhattan resident Debbie Nuss, who is the Project Coordinator at Riley County Seniors’ Service Center and former chapter president of Manhattan’s Kansas League of Women Voters, raised concerns that it was incomplete.
More than 200 pages of Moran’s July quarterly fundraising report was missing from the FEC’s website. Moran’s campaign re-filed the report with the FEC on Thursday.
The Eagle reported that the previously missing pages show Moran has received $3,000 from defense contractor Lockheed Martin’s political action committee and $3,500 from the National Rifle Association’s Political Victory Fund.
Moran and other candidates will file their October quarterly reports this week.
