NIFA staff will hold a second Live FAQ on March 28 to discuss the Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program (VMLRP) Request for Applications. NIFA anticipates that approximately $10 million in funding will be available in FY23 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.
The VMLRP Request for Applications (RFA) and the 2023 veterinary shortage situations are now available. A new requirement this year is a Letter of Intent (LOI). Specific instructions are available in the VMLRP RFA. The deadline for LOI is April 3, 2023, and the application deadline is April 17, 2023.
NIFA encourages interested applicants to view all the VMLRP informational webinars before starting an application. Informational webinars are provided below.
- Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program Overview
- Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program Application Process for Program Documents
- Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program Application Process for Loan Documents
- Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program Review Process Webinar
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
If you need a reasonable accommodation to participate in this event, please contact Danielle Farley, Program Specialist, at Danielle.Farley@usda.gov no later than Friday March 24. Language access services, such as interpretation or translation of vital information, will be provided free of charge to limited English proficient individuals upon request. If you need interpretation or translation services, please visit NIFA language services or contact Lois Tuttle, Equal Opportunity Specialist, at Lois.Tuttle@usda.gov or (443) 386-9488 no later than Friday March 10.