A New York City medical school will offer free tuition thanks to a $1 billion bequest from the 93-year-old widow of a famous Wall Street tycoon.
Dr. Ruth Gottesman, a former Bronx school professor, made the contribution to Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
It is one of the largest donations ever made to a US school, as well as the largest to a medical school.
The Bronx, New York City’s poorest borough, is the least healthy of New York’s 62 counties.
In a statement, university dean Dr Yaron Yomer stated that the “transformational” gift “radically revolutionises our ability to continue attracting students who are committed to our mission, not just those who can afford it”.
Tuition at the school is approximately $59,000 (£46,500) each year, placing students in significant debt.
Einstein stated that students in their last year will be refunded for their spring 2024 tuition, and that beginning in August, all students, including those now enrolled, will get free tuition.
The grant “will free up and lift our students, allowing them to pursue projects and ideas that would otherwise be prohibitive,” Dr. Yomer noted.
Dr. Gottesman, now 93, started working at the institution in 1968. She investigated learning problems, oversaw literacy programs, and created widely used screening and evaluation standards.
Her late husband, David “Sandy” Gottesman, established a notable investing firm and was an early investor in Warren Buffet’s international company, Berkshire Hathaway. He died in September 2022, at the age of 96.
According to Dr. Gottesman, doctors who train at Einstein go on to “provide the finest healthcare to communities here in the Bronx and all over the world”.
“I am very thankful to my late husband, Sandy, for leaving these funds in my care, and l feel blessed to be given the great privilege of making this gift to such a worthy cause,” she said in a statement.
About half of Einstein’s first-year students are from New York, while over 60% are female. The school’s statistics show that approximately 48% of its medical students are white, 29% are Asian, 11% are Hispanic, and 5% are black.
In an interview with the New York Times, she recounted that when her late husband died, he gave her a “whole portfolio of Berkshire Hathaway stock” with the instructions to “do whatever you think is right with it”.
“I wanted to fund Einstein students so that they could receive free tuition,” Dr Gottesman said she realized immediately. “There was enough money to do that in perpetuity.”
She also mentioned that she periodically wonders what her husband would have thought of the contribution.
“I hope he’s smiling and not frowning,” she told me. “He gave me the opportunity to do this, and I think he would be happy – I hope so.”
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