Cornell and PetSmart Charities Are Betting on the Vet Students Who Want to Serve the Families Who Can't Pay Full Price

Fifty million pets in this country do not have reliable access to veterinary care. Not because their families don't love them. Because the math doesn't work. A 2025 PetSmart Charities-Gallup study found that 52 percent of pet parents skipped or declined recommended veterinary care over cost, and every clinician reading this already knows exactly what that conversation in the exam room feels like.

Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine is trying to build a pipeline of vets who choose that fight on purpose.

Cornell announced this week that it is joining the PetSmart Charities Veterinary Fellowship, a new program aimed at identifying students who want to build careers in community medicine and then actually making that career survivable. The fellowship is part of a broader $100 million commitment PetSmart Charities made in 2023 to improve access to veterinary care nationally.

Here is what students actually get. Ten thousand dollars a year in tuition support while they're in school. Training in leadership, communication, and Spectrum of Care, the framework for matching treatment options to what a family can realistically afford rather than defaulting to a single gold standard. Dedicated mentorship in community medicine specifically. Continued professional development and networking. And critically, continued financial support for the first four years after graduation, as long as they're working in an approved community medicine clinic.

That last detail is the one worth sitting with. Vet school debt famously pushes new grads toward the highest-paying tracks available, and community medicine has never been one of them. A fellowship that follows a graduate for four years post-degree is a direct attempt to remove that financial gravity, at exactly the point where most new vets would otherwise get pulled somewhere else.

"Community medicine veterinarians are deeply committed to providing high-quality care, while navigating the barriers often faced by pet parents in need. This program also serves to elevate community medicine as a rewarding, long-term career option."
  Dr. Robyn Jaynes, Director of Veterinary Affairs, PetSmart Charities

Cornell was chosen as a participating institution based on its existing commitment to accessible care, and the school already has infrastructure built for exactly this kind of training. Dr. Jessica Reed, the Janet L. Swanson Director of Maddie's Shelter and Community Medicine Program at Cornell, sees the fellowship as an extension of work already underway there.

“This collaboration embodies our commitment to educating practice-ready veterinarians who lead with compassion and service, expanding access to care for underserved communities and ensuring that more pets and the people who love them receive the care they deserve,” Reed said. “By combining financial support with hands-on mentoring in communication, leadership, and community-based care, this program will help ensure our students are not only well prepared, but genuinely supported as they learn to care for both pets and the families who love them.”

MORE THAN A RECRUITMENT PITCH

The workforce shortage angle here is real, not just a talking point in a press release. Veterinary medicine is short-staffed broadly, and it is especially short-staffed in the settings that serve lower-income pet owners, where burnout runs high and pay historically runs low. A fellowship model that pairs financial support with mentorship and a built-in community of peers is a direct answer to the retention half of that problem, not just the recruitment half.

For students who already know they want to spend a career doing this work, the fellowship removes the two biggest reasons that intention usually dies: debt pressure during school and isolation once they're out working in an under-resourced clinic without a support system.

Cornell enrolls nearly 700 students annually across its veterinary, biomedical, and public health programs, and its clinicians see roughly 100,000 patients a year across seven hospitals, farms, and field settings. Folding a fellowship like this into that scale of operation gives PetSmart Charities a real pipeline, not just a symbolic partnership.

PetSmart Charities has granted more than $600 million since its founding in 1994 and has held a four-star Charity Navigator rating every year since 2003. The fellowship is a bet that funding students earlier, and staying with them longer, changes where they end up practicing and how long they stay there.

Learn more about the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine at vet.cornell.edu, and about PetSmart Charities at PetSmartCharities.org.

SOURCE: CORNELL UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF VETERINARY MEDICINE  |  PETSMART CHARITIES