Vet Tech Programs in Tennessee

Tennessee's 6 entries split evenly: 3 are community colleges — Chattanooga State Community College in Chattanooga, Columbia State Community College in Columbia and Volunteer State Community College in Gallatin — and each awards an Associate of Applied Science.

The other 3 are universities: Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate and the University of Tennessee at Martin in Martin.

Every entry carries a plain FULL ACCREDITATION line, and none prints a former name.

AVMA's list gives each program's city, degrees, dates and status; anything beyond that, from schedules to clinical placements, is a question for the school.

Three entries list a bachelor's: Austin Peay State University, Lincoln Memorial University and the University of Tennessee at Martin.

Read the degree wording closely, because it differs.

Austin Peay State University's degree is a Bachelor of Science in General Agriculture with a concentration in Veterinary Technology, and its initial accreditation dates to February 22, 2019, the latest date on the list.

The University of Tennessee at Martin lists a Bachelor of Science as its only degree.

Lincoln Memorial University lists a Bachelor of Science alongside an Associate of Science, the only entry on the list with two degrees.

All three carry plain FULL ACCREDITATION lines, with Austin Peay State University next evaluated in 2029, Lincoln Memorial University in 2028 and the University of Tennessee at Martin in 2030.

None of the 6 Tennessee entries 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 Tennessee resident considering one of them has two questions for the school: whether it admits students living in Tennessee, and how it arranges the supervised clinical hours every accredited program requires at a practice near the student.

The program's own entry on AVMA's list is also the first thing to confirm, because the state's license asks for graduation from an AVMA-accredited program.

The Tennessee Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners licenses veterinary technicians, and the Board's rule requires a lawfully issued license to practice, so the credential gates the work rather than just the title.

The statute defines a veterinary technician as a graduate of a program accredited by the American Veterinary Medical Association, and no experience-based route appears in the sources read — years working in a Tennessee practice do not replace the program.

After graduating, an applicant passes the VTNE, which must have been taken within the last ten years of the application; no separate state law exam appears in the sources read.

The statute calls the credential a licensed veterinary technician, while the Board's rule chapter says veterinary medical technician, which is where the LVMT abbreviation on job postings comes from.

Using a designation that implies the credential without meeting the chapter's requirements is a Class B misdemeanor.