Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York will provide its students with free tuition following a $1 billion donation from a former faculty member.
The donor, 93-year-old Dr. Ruth Gottesman, spent 55 years of her life as the chair of the school's board
. She made the historic decision to donate the money in the name of her late husband, David "Sandy" Gottesman, who was an early investor of Berkshire Hathaway as well as a longtime friend of Berkshire's famed CEO Warren Buffett, as per CNN.
Massive Medical School Donation
The president and CEO of Montefiore Medicine, Philip Ozuah, announced the "transformational gift" on Monday. He said that it was the largest donation to any medical school in the United States.
Sandy, who was also the co-founder of New York-based investment firm First Manhattan Co., died in 2022. The Gottesmans had long been involved in healthcare philanthropy and in 2010, their gift of $25 million to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine went into creating the school's Institute for Stem Cell Research and Regenerative Medicine.
On top of this, Sandy had also served on the board of New York's Mount Sinai Hospital. In a news release, Gottesman said that she was very thankful to her late husband for leaving the funds in her care. She noted that she felt blessed to be given the great privilege of making the donation to what she considered to be a "worthy cause," said Fortune.
She first joined the medical school in 1968 and developed screening, evaluation, and treatments for children with learning disabilities. She founded the Adult Literacy Program at Einstein's Children's Evaluation and Rehabilitation Center in 1992, which was the "first of its kind."
Furthermore, she also served as the founding director of the school's Emily Fisher Landau Center for the Treatment of Learning Disabilities, which first opened in 1997. There are only a few educational donations that compare to the enormity of Gottesman's donation.
Providing Free Tuition
While the sheer size of the donation is already unprecedented, Gottesman's donation is also notable because it is going to a medical institution in the Bronx, which is the city's poorest borough. The Bronx has a high rate of premature deaths and ranks as the healthiest county in New York, according to the New York Times.
There have been a number of billionaires in the past generation who have given hundreds of millions of dollars to better-known medical schools and hospitals in Manhattan. Gottesman said that her contribution would enable new doctors to start their careers without suffering from medical school debt, which frequently exceeds $200,000.
Gottesman is also hoping that her donation would broaden the student body to include people who could not otherwise afford to enter medical school but want to study in the field. Ozuah and Gottesman spoke about the donation in an interview on Friday, including how it came together and what it would mean for medical students at the school.
The contribution would allow current fourth-year students to be reimbursed for their spring 2024 semester tuition. Additionally, starting in August later this year, all students moving forward will receive free tuition at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, said PR Newswire.
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