How Much Do Vet Assistants Make?
How much do vet assistants make? Is veterinary assistant pay good? Honestly, no one becomes a vet assistant expecting to get rich – at least not monetarily. If a high salary is your main priority, you’ll have to choose something else, but if you want a rewarding job that lets you spend all day with animals, it’s a winner. Veterinary assistants make a decent living, but the big perk is helping animals stay healthy and saving lives.
But to get back to the question of how much vet assistants make, in In May 2023, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found the median vet assistant salary was over $36,000.
In comparison, the median salary for a bank teller was $36,380; the median income for receptionists was $33,960; and the median salary for preschool teachers was $35,330. So salaries for vet assistants are in this ballpark.
Why Is There Such a Large Range in Veterinary Assistant Salaries?
A couple of things factor into the salary difference.
- How much you can make largely depends on where you live. You can earn a higher salary in a big city as opposed to a small town or rural area. However, the cost of living is going to be way higher in a large city, so it averages out. Don’t move to San Francisco or Boston just to get a higher salary!
- Vet assistant salaries vary depending on the type of facility you work in. Not all veterinary assistants work in a vet clinic or animal hospital. They find jobs in wildlife refuges, research facilities, university laboratories – any place where animals need regular care. While the duties remain largely the same, a job in a veterinary clinic typically pays less than a job in a research facility or a college
Do You Need a Degree to Be a Vet Assistant?
No, there is not an education requirement beyond having your high school diploma or GED. It’s a career that you can learn on the job.
While this is technically true, in reality there’s a lot of competition for vet assistant positions. Lots of people love animals and want a job working with them. As a result, employers can have their pick of lots of candidates for every job opening.
And who do you think the jobs go to? People who have prior experience working with animals or people who have some type of training or certificate. Most of the time, just having a high school diploma won’t cut it.
Is Earning a Vet Assistant Certificate Expensive?
When you compare the cost of an online certificate program to the cost of the average college degree, it’s very affordable. The average cost of a year at an in-state public college is $10,662 according to U.S. News and World Report. Multiply that by four and you get the cost of a degree.
You can get your certificate online with Animal Behavior College in a year, and the tuition will be a fraction of the yearly cost. ABC also offers a lot of tuition assistance programs and runs special tuition reduction discounts.
Earning your certificate through ABC could help you get a job in the field faster, making it worth the cost of tuition. Why waste time banging on doors with nothing to recommend you to employers? The faster you finish your course, the faster you could find work in the field and the sooner you start getting paid! Our program is one of only a few recognized by the National Association of Veterinary Technicians, which can impress upon employers the level of education that you received earning your certificate.
In addition to having a great curriculum, ABC makes sure every student gets 100 hours of real world experience in a veterinary practice. Having that experience can beef up your resume!
Instead of getting turned down for every job you apply for because you have no experience or credentials, you could be getting job interviews because you have both.
Call 800-795-3294 to learn more!
