Vet Tech Programs in Colorado

All 8 programs award an Associate of Applied Science.

Two sit in Colorado Springs — Apex College of Veterinary Technology and Pima Medical Institute-Colorado Springs — and two in Denver: Bel-Rea Institute of Animal Technology and Community College of Denver.

The remaining 4 are Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction, Colorado Mountain College in Glenwood Springs, Front Range Community College in Ft.

Collins and — as a separate entry from its Colorado Springs counterpart — Pima Medical Institute-Aurora.

Three of the 8 are community colleges by name: Colorado Mountain College, Community College of Denver and Front Range Community College.

AVMA's entry for Colorado Mesa University also still prints its former name, Western Colorado Community College, which helps if an older transcript or brochure uses it.

Beyond each program's city, degree, dates and status line, the list says nothing; schedules and clinical placements are questions for the school.

Colorado Mesa University is the only program on the list whose status line is not plain FULL ACCREDITATION: AVMA lists it as INITIAL ACCREDITATION, with initial accreditation dated June 17, 2021 and the next evaluation printed as 2026.

AVMA's own definition says initial accreditation is not punitive, is simply the terminology given to newly accredited programs for their first five years, does not mean a program is at higher risk of losing accreditation, and that graduates of an initially accredited program count as graduates of an AVMA CVTEA accredited program.

AVMA prints 2026 as the next-evaluation year for Colorado Mesa University and for Bel-Rea Institute of Animal Technology.

The concrete question for an applicant: ask the program where its status stands today and for its published VTNE pass rate, because the list is a snapshot retrieved September 23, 2026.

The other 7 programs all read FULL ACCREDITATION.

None of the 8 Colorado programs appears on AVMA's distance-education list, which names 13 programs in all, each listed under the state where it is based; those 13 are shown lower on this page.

A Colorado resident considering one of them needs two answers before enrolling: whether the program admits students living in Colorado, and how it arranges the supervised clinical hours an accredited program requires at a practice near the student.

Whichever route a student takes, the credentialing behind Colorado's registration confirms graduation from an AVMA-accredited program, so the program must hold AVMA accreditation however it teaches.

Colorado registers veterinary technicians with the Colorado State Board of Veterinary Medicine, and since January 1, 2024 a person who practices as a veterinary technician in Colorado must hold that registration — the requirement covers the work itself, not only the title.

The registration is built on current credentialing from the Colorado Association of Certified Veterinary Technicians (CACVT), which confirms graduation from an AVMA-accredited veterinary technology program and passage of the national examination.

No on-the-job route exists for new applicants: a time-limited registration let people already working in the role qualify through documented work experience, but it closed to new applications on January 1, 2024.

After graduating, the national veterinary technician examination and a CACVT credential lead to the state registration.

Every program on the list above counts as AVMA-accredited, whatever its status line says.