Federal Rulemaking Will Reshape Veterinary Education Accreditation

Proposed regulations would require significant changes to how the AVMA Council on Education operates. What comes next depends on a process still underway.

In May, the U.S. Department of Education announced results from a negotiated rulemaking process that will reshape how veterinary education gets accredited in the United States. The proposed changes are sweeping. They affect who can serve on accrediting bodies. They change how accreditors operate. They alter how the government reviews accreditors. And they raise questions about what veterinary education accreditation will look like in 2027.

The AVMA Council on Education, which has accredited veterinary colleges since 1946, will be directly affected. So will all 36 accredited veterinary colleges in the United States.

The changes are not yet law. They're proposed regulations. The Education Department will open them for public comment this summer. If the final rule is issued by November 1 of this year, most changes take effect July 1, 2027. That timeline gives the veterinary education community less than a year to understand what's coming and plan for it.

What's Being Proposed

The proposed regulations address four main areas. First, they change who can be involved in accreditation. Second, they set new standards for how student success and outcomes are measured. Third, they reshape how accreditors operate and interact with professional organizations. Fourth, they establish new compliance and civil rights requirements.

The most significant change for the AVMA COE involves its relationship with the AVMA itself. Currently, the AVMA and the American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges provide staff support to the council, which maintains independence in its decision-making. Under the proposed rules, accreditors would no longer be able to share resources, personnel, services, equipment, facilities, or information technology with any related, associated, or affiliated trade or professional organization.

This means the AVMA COE would need to operate as a completely separate entity from the AVMA. It would need its own staff, its own budget, its own administrative infrastructure.

Additionally, accreditors would be prohibited from seeking feedback, formally or informally, on proposed standards from related organizations. This is framed as a protection of independence. The AVMA says this does not change how it currently operates, since it already has full autonomy in accreditation decisions.

Changes to Composition

Under current rules, the AVMA COE is composed of 19 voting members. The AVMA's selection committee appoints eight. The American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges appoints eight. The council itself elects three public members. The Canadian Veterinary Medical Association appoints one representative.

The proposed rules would change this significantly. Academics employed by accredited institutions—including deans and faculty members—would no longer be allowed to vote on setting policies and standards. Additionally, anyone who is a member of a related professional organization would no longer qualify as a public member.

This is a substantial shift. Currently, many council members and the more than 65 site visitors who conduct college assessments are current or former veterinary faculty members. They bring knowledge of veterinary education from inside the system. The proposed rules would eliminate this perspective from decision-making.

The rationale offered by the Education Department is that this creates independence from conflicts of interest. The potential concern is that it removes specialized knowledge from accreditation processes.

Financial Implications

The proposed separation of accreditors from professional organizations creates a financial problem. Currently, the AVMA and AAVMC provide staff support to the AVMA COE. Veterinary colleges do not directly fund this accreditor function. Under the proposed rules, accreditors must have full control over their budgets without input from related organizations. All dues must be paid directly to the accrediting body.

This means veterinary colleges would need to pay higher accreditation fees to support a standalone accrediting organization. The Association of Specialized and Professional Accreditors stated this explicitly: to make up for the loss of funding from AVMA and AAVMC support, colleges would need to pay greater fees.

How much higher? That remains unknown. It depends on how the independent AVMA COE structures its operations and what it costs to maintain a separate organization.

New Standards and Assessments

The proposed rules require accreditors to evaluate student success using several metrics: standardized assessment performance, licensure or certification results, retention rates, completion and graduation rates, post-completion employment outcomes, and economic returns on education.

For veterinary medicine, this includes the North American Veterinary Licensing Examination (NAVLE) results. The AVMA COE already reviews NAVLE pass rates as part of accreditation. The proposed rules expand this to include broader outcome assessment frameworks.

Additionally, accreditors would be required to evaluate whether institutions maintain academic freedom protections, have policies preventing research misconduct, protect civil rights and First Amendment rights, and support intellectual diversity and free exchange of ideas among faculty.

This expands the scope of accreditation beyond traditional academic program quality into institutional governance and civil rights compliance. These have not historically been part of veterinary education accreditation.

Antitrust Requirements

The proposed rules require accrediting agencies to have internal controls ensuring compliance with antitrust laws. Specifically, accreditors must ensure they do not coordinate or collude to unnecessarily restrict access to employment or occupations.

The Education Department has also proposed that when determining whether to re-recognize an accreditor, anticompetitive conduct can be considered as a negative factor.

For veterinary medicine, this is particularly relevant because accreditation by the AVMA COE is effectively required to practice. All 50 states require graduates to pass the NAVLE, and NAVLE eligibility requires graduation from an AVMA COE-accredited school or equivalent credential.

What Remains Uncertain

The proposed regulations are still in the public comment phase. The rules are not final. Details about implementation remain unclear.

For example, the rules propose that academics employed by accredited institutions cannot vote on accreditation policy. But how this works for site visits, which typically involve veterinary faculty, is not specified. Will faculty still be allowed to serve on site visit teams? Will they be able to assess accreditation standards but not vote on policy?

Similarly, how the requirement to evaluate academic freedom, civil rights compliance, and intellectual diversity will be operationalized in veterinary accreditation is not detailed.

The AVMA and the American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges have both said they will evaluate implications as the process unfolds. Dr. Jesse Hostetter, COE chair, stated that the council will make necessary changes once rules are confirmed and established, while maintaining commitment to rigorous accreditation standards.

What This Means for Veterinary Education

The proposed changes will affect how veterinary colleges operate and how they demonstrate educational quality. They will affect accreditor composition and operations. They will increase accreditation costs for colleges.

The timeline is tight. If the final rule is issued by November 1, 2026, implementation begins July 1, 2027. That gives veterinary colleges and the AVMA COE approximately seven months to plan and implement substantial changes.

For five veterinary colleges currently in development with provisional accreditation, and three programs with letters of reasonable assurance, the timing of these changes may affect their pathways to full accreditation.

What Happens Next

The Education Department will accept public comments on the proposed regulations this summer. The veterinary education community can submit feedback during this period.

Once the comment period closes, the Education Department will issue a final rule or revise the proposed rule based on feedback. The timeline for this is not specified.

The veterinary education community and the AVMA COE are watching. Questions that are currently unanswered will likely become clearer as the process continues. Until then, proposed changes remain exactly that: proposed.