The heavy load of student debt from veterinary school is driving up the shortage of veterinarians across the country and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is trying to help offset the costs.

This week, the USDA announced it will make $4.4 million in funds available for veterinary student loan repayment through the Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program (VMLRP).

New veterinarians who commit to practicing in one of the eight designated shortage locations in Texas for at least three years are eligible for the program. The VMLRP may pay up to $25,000 per year toward repayment of principal and interest on government and commercial loans received for attending an accredited college of veterinary medicine and graduating with a degree of Doctor of Veterinary Medicine or the equivalent.

“Veterinarians are critical to America’s food safety and security, as well as to the health and well-being of both animals and humans,” Dr. Sonny Ramaswamy, National Institute of Food and Agriculture administrator, said in a USDA news release. “There are significant shortages of veterinarians in areas of this country, and the leading cause is the heavy cost of four years of professional veterinary medical training, which leaves current graduates of veterinary colleges with an average debt of more than $135,000.”

To receive funding, participants must serve in one of three types of shortage situations. Type 1 shortage areas must dedicate at least 80 percent of their time to provision of food animal veterinary services. Type 2 shortages are rural areas in which awardees are obligated to provide food animal veterinary services at least 30 percent of their time. Type 3 shortage areas are dedicated to public practice and awardees must commit at least 49 percent of their time.

The majority of the shortage areas in the Lone Star State are located in South Texas, the Rio Grande Valley and the High Plains regions.

The eight areas identified for 2016 include:

• Wheeler and Collingsworth counties (Type 2, High Priority)
• Armstrong (Type 2, High Priority)
• Cameron, Hidalgo, Starr, Webb, Willacy, Zapata (Type 3, Critical Priority)
• Haskell, King, northern Jones, Stonewall (Type 2, High Priority)
• Brazoria (Type 2, High Priority)
• Starr, Webb, Zapata (Type 2, High Priority)
• Brazos (Type 3, Critical)
• Dimmit, La Salle, Maverick, Uvalde, Zavala (Type 2, Critical Priority)

Applications can be found here.

The deadline to apply is May 20. Offers will be made to selected individual veterinarian applicants in September 2016.