New York City Medical School Eliminates Tuition
Many talented students aspire to go to medical school. It’s no easy feat being accepted into an excellent school like New York City’s prestigious Albert Einstein College of Medicine, but now students will have one less thing to worry about. The medical school will be tuition-free beginning in August 2024.
That’s thanks to a $1 billion donation – the largest gift given to any medical school in the country –, reported ABC News. Given by Ruth Gottesman, Ed.D., a former professor and the widow of a Wall Street investor, this remarkable gift was announced on Monday, February 26 to a cheering and tearful crowd.
This gift will keep giving
The donation will ensure that no student at the Montefiore’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine will ever have to pay tuition again, according to a press release from the umbrella organization for the school. The medical school was founded in 1955 with the mission to welcome all students without any restrictions of race, religion, and gender. Now the school will be able to remove financial restrictions too.
“I am profoundly grateful to Gottesman for this historic and transformational gift. I believe we can change healthcare history when we recognize that access is the path to excellence. With this gift, Gottesman will fund excellence in perpetuity and secure our foundational mission of advancing human health,” said Philip O. Ozuah, M.D., Ph.D., president and CEO of Montefiore Einstein, in the press release.
The tuition at Einstein is $59,458 per year, reported the NYT, and most medical students graduate with $202,453 in debt, not including undergraduate borrowing. The donation will remove this crushing debt from student loans that so many face.
The Gottesman Family Foundation
Gottesman joined the medical school in 1968 and is currently the Chair of the Einstein board of trustees and Montefiore Health System board member. She has been affiliated with the medical school for 55 years.
Through her family’s foundation, the Gottesman Fund, she and her husband Sandy have supported schools, universities, museums and charities in the US and Israel. In 2021, the family distributed more than $24 million to these numerous causes.
When Gottesman’s husband passed away in 2022, she inherited a portfolio of Berkshire Hathaway stock to disburse at her discretion. She chose to give it to the medical school. And she stipulated that the medical school not change its name.
“Each year, well over 100 students enter Albert Einstein College of Medicine in their quest for degrees in medicine and science. They leave as superbly trained scientists and compassionate and knowledgeable physicians, with the expertise to find new ways to prevent diseases, and provide the finest healthcare to communities here in the Bronx and all over the world,” Gottesman said in the press release.
