School of Veterinary Medicine gets first full-tuition endowed scholarship

The School of Veterinary Medicine will announce its first-ever full-tuition endowed scholarship winner later this year, thanks to an anonymous donor who established the E.A. Neufeld Family Scholarship Fund.

The scholarship will pay a student’s full annual tuition, which is equal to approximately $16,000 for Wisconsin residents and $24,000 for non-residents. Susan Hyland, associate dean for academic affairs, and others at the school are establishing criteria to help choose the scholarship’s first recipient in the fall of 2005.

Veterinary School Dean Daryl Buss says the scholarship is a welcome development for students, who carry a significant debt load at graduation. “There are so many good students that it’s a challenge to pick just one,” says Buss.

Each year, 80 students are accepted into the school’s four-year professional degree program, for a total of 320 students in any given year. Any one of them would benefit tremendously from getting tuition paid.

Buss says the school’s goal is to raise a total of $20 million for scholarship support. To date, the school has raised $4.9 million.