FRESNO, Calif. — The number of veterinarians who work with farm animals is on the decline as many retire and fewer students choose large-animal practice. Officials are worried about the impact on food safety, because large-animal veterinarians serve as inspectors at ranches and slaughterhouses. “They’re basically on the front line when it comes to maintaining a safe food supply, not only in the U.S., but in products we export. Vets diagnose diseases that can be transferred from animals to humans,” says David Kirkpatrick, spokesman for the American Veterinary Medical Association. A recent survey by the association found that only 2% of veterinary school students in 2010 graduating classes said they plan to work mostly with large, non-pet animals. Another 7% studied a mixed curriculum that included all types of animals, but the majority of those respondents lean toward pet care. “We have known for years anecdotally that vets were having a difficult time finding people to work at their practice or selling it when they retire,” Kirkpatrick said. “But now we know how big the problem is and how that will magnify over the years,” he said. QUALITY: Shrinking beef market may mean poorer meat at stores From 1998 to 2009, the number of small animal vets climbed to 47,118 from 30,255, while the number of farm-animal vets dropped to 5,040 from 5,553. And the AVMA found that large-animal vets often earn a lower salary: an average of $57,745 compared with $64,744 for small-animal vets, according to a 2008 survey. The large-animal vet world is graying — half of farm-animal vets are older than 50, and only 4.4% are younger than 30. About a third of veterinarians working at the federal level are eligible to retire in the next three years, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture . At least six rural counties in California have just one large-animal veterinarian. Stuart Hall, 28, a veterinarian in Visalia, Calif., said a single call can tie him up for four hours — time in which he can’t respond to emergencies. “My worry is always that a farmer is going to try to take care of something themselves,” he said. Hall was born in rural England and educated in London before his interest in working with cows brought him to Tulare County, the nation’s largest dairy producer, five years ago. He and his wife have a blog detailing his life as a farm vet. “I just really like cows. They’re big, old gentle things,” he says. Hall likes working outdoors, the drives through the country and the impact his expertise can have on food operations, he says. But for pre-vet student Justeen Borrecco the decision to pursue a career in pet medicine was easy. She has been shoved, bruised and knocked down by the sheep she feeds every day as a student worker at the on-campus farm at California State University, Fresno. “This is why I want to work with dogs and kitties. I don’t want to deal with anything bigger than me,” the 19-year-old said. On Thursday she pulled on her farm boots, picked up bundles of hay and maneuvered her 130-pound frame around to feed dozens of ewes and lambs. “But it’s still good experience. Anything I learn or help with, like vaccines or bandaging, can apply to other animals,” Borrecco said. The sophomore from Hanford, Calif., said it’s important to get as much hands-on time with animals before applying to vet school. Several schools and states have tried to lure students to large-animal veterinary medicine. At the University of California, Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine, applicants interested in becoming farm-animal vets have an admissions edge. The university has slowly boosted the number of students interested in large-animal medicine to 11 of 127, double the number from four years ago. The vet school has also reached out to high schools in rural areas. More than a dozen states, from Washington to Georgia, offer some type of loan repayment program or other incentives if students pledge to work in a region in need of large-animal vets. Vet students typically finish school with about $134,000 in debt, according to the AVMA. Iowa State’s VSMART program allows students focused on farm animals to reduce by a year the amount of time it takes to get a veterinary medicine degree — a big deal when you’re talking about spending upward of $32,000 a year, Kirkpatrick said. Federal legislators have introduced several bills to help increase the number of farm animal vets, including the Veterinary Services Investment Act, which is aimed at recruitment, helping vets expand their practices and providing financial assistance for students. The bill passed the House in September and is awaiting approval in the Senate. The students who have chosen to work with large animals are committed to their choice. Elizabeth Adam, 26, of Santa Maria, Calif., earned a degree in English and business at Loyola Marymount University , and later worked as a consultant at a law firm — but really dreamed of being a farm doctor. “I was making good money but was miserable,” she said. Adam is now in her second year at Fresno State’s pre-vet program. “This is for me,” she said. “The outdoors and the late night emergency calls and the country — I’m ready for all of that.” Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. 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CHICAGO — From continuing education and enrichment classes to graduate school, many of America’s retirees are pursuing their interests at the college level. It’s a trend that is likely to grow as seniors’ ranks swell with baby boomers, who by 2015 will represent some 35% of the U.S. population, looking to either acquire new job skills or simply enjoy new learning experiences. (Baby boomers are people born between 1946 and 1964) Nearly six decades after graduating from college, Pete Shannon still can’t get enough of lectures and homework assignments. The 78-year-old Dallas retiree has taken dozens of classes at his local community college since he stopped working as a certified public accountant in 2004. This summer he studied music composition, and in the fall he plans to tackle philosophy and whatever else piques his interest. Exams can be challenging, but one thing he doesn’t sweat is tuition bills. In one of many such arrangements across the U.S., Dallas County residents age 65 and over get up to six hours’ tuition free at Richland College every semester. “It’s a marvelous opportunity,” Shannon says, calling the college his “candy store.” “It’s a wonderful place to go. The catalog is rich with all kinds of classes.” The prospect of having to pay for even moderately priced college classes might sound daunting to a retiree living on fixed income. But numerous discounts, tuition waivers and other deals make it possible. “There are more opportunities than in the past for senior citizens to take college classes and get help paying for them,” says financial aid expert Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid.org and Fastweb.com. Many community colleges and some four-year colleges allow seniors to audit classes for free and significantly reduce tuition for those who take them for credit. The financial arrangements vary widely by school and so do the age requirements — generally 60, 62, or 65 and over. Twenty-one states and Washington, D.C., offer free tuition for senior citizens at some or all of their public colleges, according to FinAid.org. The student still must buy textbooks and may have to pay fees. Two relatively new opportunities offer even more help. The Senior Scholarships program, created last year as part of the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, provides $1,000 education awards for people 55 or older who volunteer 350 or more hours a year. The money may be used for the volunteer’s own education or transferred to a child, foster child or grandchild. And the American Opportunity tax credit can lower taxes for students of any age dollar-for-dollar for the first $2,000 spent on tuition, fees and course materials. The credit also applies to 25% of the second $2,000. Unless extended, the temporary credit expires at year’s end. More seniors might head back to school if they knew about the deep discounts and freebies — or lived near colleges. As it is, education remains an untapped resource for most. According to data released in June by the Bureau of Labor Statistics , Americans from age 65 to 74 say they spend 6.77 hours on leisure and sports on a typical weekday, watch 3.58 hours of TV, spend 0.71 hour reading, 0.59 hour socializing and 0.03 hour on education. That’s less than two minutes, compared to 0.46 hour or about 28 minutes for the population as a whole. Shannon, who got his undergraduate degree in business economics from Rice University in 1953, is happy to stay in school for life. He says he takes college classes to get out of the house, at his wife’s urging, and exercise his brain. The rest of him gets a workout, too, as he often bikes the 4 1/2 miles (6.4 kilometers) to campus. A perfect 4.0 grade-point average through 114 credit hours shows he’s not taking any mental shortcuts. “I like writing the papers and doing the work,” he says. “It’s more complete than Googling a subject. And by the time you finish the semester, you’ve learned something.” Thanks to the tuition deals, he reckons he has spent no more than $1,000 on education expenses since he retired. But he’d dig a little deeper into his retirement savings if he had to. “Frankly, I’d go to college even if I had to pay up to $1,000 a year for it,” he says. “I’d consider it part of my personal entertainment budget.” If retirement-age students decide to borrow to pay for college, loans don’t have to be as burdensome as they might expect. Federal student loans are discharged on the borrower’s death. That means the retiree student’s heirs won’t get shortchanged because of those late-in-life classes in history and Chinese. The senior can also choose the repayment plan with the longest payback period, thus the lowest monthly payment. When finances aren’t an issue, most any educational experience is still possible in retirement. Anne Carter Harrison-Clark of Williamsburg, Virginia, is thriving as a 71-year-old student at the William & Mary Law School. Learning more about the law is something she long aspired to do during a career as a lobbyist and public policy lecturer at Georgetown University , among other roles. Now she has both the time and money to do it, thanks to she and her husband Bob selling property near the top of the market six years ago. Immersed in her third year of law classes, she is thrilled to be studying at the college where her great-great-grandfather, Benjamin Harrison V, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was educated. She doesn’t at all mind being the only white-haired student or getting constantly asked why she’s there. The short answer to that is she wants to keep the brain cells going with new information and new contacts. And she doesn’t know where this educational “journey” will take her, although she does intend to get her law degree at some point, on her own schedule. “This whole (college) experience has been like dessert, like double fudge icing on a cake. Just a wonderful experience,” says Harrison-Clark, who already has a Ph.D. in politics. “I highly encourage it.” Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

OAKLAND (AP) — It’s never too late to earn your college degree. Just ask 94-year-old Hazel Soares. The San Leandro woman was one of about 500 students to pick up diplomas Saturday during a commencement ceremony at Mills College , an Oakland liberal arts college for women that also offers coed graduate programs. “It’s taken me quite a long time because I’ve had a busy life,” said Soares. “I’m finally achieving it, and it makes me feel really good.” Soares, who has six children and 40 grandchildren and great-grandchildren, is believed to be the world’s second oldest person to graduate from college. Nola Ochs (OAKS) of Kansas became the oldest when she graduated from Fort Hays State University three years ago at age 95, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. Ochs, now 98, topped that academic feat Saturday, when she received her master’s degree in liberal studies from Fort Hays. The nonagenarians are earning their degrees as the Obama administration pushes to once again make the United States the world leader in college attainment by 2020. Born in Richmond, Calif. in 1915, Soares said she had wanted to attend college right after she graduated from Roosevelt High School in Oakland in 1932, but that was during the Great Depression . “Unless you had some help, it would have been impossible to go to college,” Soares said. “However I never lost the desire to go.” Soares married twice, raised six children and worked as a nurse and event organizer before she retired and decided to return to pursue her dream of obtaining a college education. She spent six years taking courses at Chabot College in Hayward before earning her associate’s degree when she was 85. Then she enrolled at Mills College in 2007. “We are really amazed and very proud of my mom,” said Regina Hungerford, Soares’ youngest child. “The biggest thing that we can all learn is that we’re never too old.” At Saturday’s commencement, she was congratulated by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi , who delivered the keynote speech. She was cheered by her classmates and more than 40 family members. “She’s really an incredible inspiration,” said Sandeep Brar, who also graduated Saturday. Soares doesn’t plan to relax now that she finally has her degree. The art history major hopes to work as a docent at a San Francisco Bay area museum. Soares said she doesn’t know the source of her longevity — no one in her family has lived as long as she has — but she believes it has something to do with eating lots of fresh vegetables. She still drives, and she visits her doctor only once every three years to make sure she’s OK. She said she doesn’t take any prescription medications. She hopes others realize that it’s never too late to get a college education. “There’s no reason why you could not go back,” Soares said. “Some people do give up the idea or postpone the idea. It’s too late. It’s too much work. They may not realize that once you try it it’s exciting to go to school.” Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — A first-of-its-kind law bars public high schools in Maryland from automatically sending student scores on a widely used military aptitude test to recruiters, a practice that critics say was giving the armed forces backdoor access to young people without their parents’ consent. School districts around the country have the choice of whether to administer the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery exam, and ones that offer it typically pass the scores and students’ contact information directly to the military. Topics on the test range from math and reading to knowledge of electronics and automobiles. The Maryland law, the first in the nation after similar California legislation was vetoed, was signed last month and bars schools from automatically releasing the information to military recruiters. Instead, students, and their parents if they are under 18, will have to decide whether to give the information to the military. The law takes effect in July. One other state, Hawaii , has a similar policy for its schools, but not a law. Roughly 650,000 U.S. high school students took the exam in the 2008-2009 school year, and the Department of Defense says scores for 92% of them were automatically sent to military recruiters. In the fiscal year that ended in September, 7.6% of those who enlisted in the military used scores from the test as part of their applications. Nancy Grasmick , Maryland Superintendent of Schools, said in a letter to lawmakers that the test and score analysis are “free services that public schools often utilize as part of their ongoing career development and exploration programs.” Grasmick took no position on the legislation in her letter and did not respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press. Defense Department spokeswoman Eileen Lainez said the data is used both to screen students’ enlistment eligibility and to determine their interests and skills for nonmilitary careers. Asked about criticism that the military is going around parents, Lainez said in an e-mail that “parents and other influencers are in the best position to help advise students of various career opportunities, and the pros and cons associated with each of the choices.” PROTESTS: Military-backed public schools on the rise HIGHER ED: Military academies, few others tuition-free JUNIOR ROTC: ‘More than a class’ to students Members of the Maryland Coalition to Protect Student Privacy, which pushed for the legislation, argued the military isn’t upfront about the test’s real purpose. Coalition member and high school teacher Pat Elder said he became involved in the issue after volunteering on a phone hot line for troubled soldiers. Many told him they hadn’t considered the military until a recruiter who’d seen their scores contacted them. “I’ve spoken to ‘C’ or ‘D’ students who are called by a recruiter and told ‘Dude, you’re really good at this kind of stuff,’ and that’s what it takes for them to join,” said Elder, who teaches at the Muslim Community School in Potomac, Md. “There is an insidious, psychological element to these tests.” While Maryland is the first state to pass a law prohibiting the automatic release of scores to military recruiters, some individual school districts elsewhere, including the Los Angeles school system, have policies to the same effect. Hawaii’s Department of Education implemented its statewide policy last year. Four Maryland counties — Howard, Frederick, Montgomery and Prince George’s — also blocked the direct release of scores to recruiters before the state law was passed. State legislators in California passed a similar measure in 2008, but it was vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger . School districts in Maryland have had different policies for when and how they administer the roughly 3.5 hour multiple-choice exam. Some school districts, like rural Allegany County, only offer the test to students at a technical high school, while individual schools in the Baltimore City district can choose whether to administer the exam. Maryland state senator Jamie Raskin, D-Montgomery, said he sponsored the bill partly because school districts’ approaches varied. He said constituents also told him they didn’t think local school districts knew their options. “They thought they had to turn over information to recruiters,” Raskin said. Some argued that the measure was antimilitary. Baltimore County Republican Sen. Andy Harris said the legislation gives students the impression that they should be skeptical of military careers. “I think sending any message while we’re at war overseas that the military in any way is not an honorable profession is the wrong message to send,” Harris said. Del. Sheila Hixson, D-Montgomery, sponsored the bill in the House, bristled at that argument. “For me, it wasn’t the military piece, it was the parental permission,” Hixson said. “Parents didn’t know what was going on and children didn’t realize what was going on.” Toria Latnie, who now lives in Michigan, said a counselor at her son’s Florida charter high school told seniors in late 2008 that the military aptitude test was a requirement for graduation. Latnie researched the exam online and refused to allow her son to take the test. “I was angry, very angry,” said Latnie, a mother of five. “I felt lied to, deceived, like people were trying to go behind my back and give my child’s private information to the military.” Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.