Federal Oversight Comes for Veterinary College Accreditation

In a column for Today’s Veterinary Business, Mark Cushing examines the escalating controversy surrounding the American Veterinary Medical Association’s Council on Education (COE), the accreditor of veterinary colleges in the United States and Canada, arguing that the body’s authority is now facing scrutiny it has never encountered before. Cushing traces the roots of the tension to the COE’s longstanding resistance to distributive clinical models — programs that rely on private practices, shelters, and clinics rather than traditional teaching hospitals — and walks through seven “disruptions” that have landed on the COE’s agenda since 2023. These include the council’s centralization of power over veterinary schools, new rules making distributive-model approvals more difficult, and a March 2025 move to restrict schools’ use of online learning technologies. He details Lincoln Memorial University’s antitrust lawsuit against the AVMA over the denial of a second Florida campus — a case in which the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division filed an 18-page statement of interest — as well as the COE’s contested attempt to limit Tuskegee University’s accreditation rights. Cushing then turns to a newly formed U.S. Department of Education task force charged with reforming accreditation practices across higher education, outlining its focus on deregulation, student outcomes, merit, and integrity. He concludes that the future of veterinary school accreditation may ultimately be shaped by the Department of Education rather than the AVMA, and that with the COE’s practices now out in the open, the animal health community has a unique opportunity to engage.