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When Dr. Ruth L. Gottesman’s financier husband died in 2022, he surprised his wife by bequeathing her a substantial stock portfolio, to do with whatever she wanted. Two years later and Dr. Gottesman has settled on what to do: she’s just given $1 billion to Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York City, where she has worked in various research, administrative, and teaching capacities since 1968. New state-of-the-art facilities to come? No. Instead of investing in equipment, the college has decided to invest in their pupils. Starting with the fall 2024 semester, tuition is eliminated for all students. As in, free. In perpetuity. In a touching move, the college gathered their student body into an auditorium to deliver the news in person. The reaction was uproarious:
The largest donation ever made to a US medical school: On Monday, students learned the college [Albert Einstein College of Medicine] would soon be tuition-free thanks to a sizable donation of $1 billion from Ruth L. Gottesman, Ed.D., chair of the Einstein Board of Trustees and Montefiore Health System board member. Dr. Gottesman’s donation is the largest made to any medical school in the country, and will ensure that no student at Einstein will have to pay tuition again, the school said via a press release.
Breaking the news to students: “I’m happy to share with you that starting in August this year, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine will be tuition-free,” a rep for the school said in a video of the announcement posted to YouTube. Students leaped from their seats with joy after learning that they would no longer be required to pay for their education while enrolled at the college. Applause was heard in the auditorium and some were seen crying as they embraced one another in the clip. “This is something significantly profound, affluence no longer dictates who can become a doctor,” one user commented on the YouTube video. On the school’s Facebook account, another individual who claimed to have been present shortly after the students received the news wrote, “I wish I could bottle the happiness felt in that room. Truly a day I’ll never forget.”
From the Bronx to beyond: “This donation radically revolutionizes our ability to continue attracting students who are committed to our mission, not just those who can afford it,” Dr. Yaron Tomer, the Marilyn and Stanley Katz Dean at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, said in a statement. He added, “We will be reminded of the legacy this historic gift represents each spring as we send another diverse class of physicians out across the Bronx and around the world to provide compassionate care and transform their communities.” Although the tuition-free education does not go into effect until the start of the fall semester, all current fourth-year students will be reimbursed for tuition already paid for their spring 2024 semester.
About Dr. Ruth: Dr. Gottesman has been working with the college since 1968 when she joined Einstein’s Children’s Evaluation and Rehabilitation Center (CERC). Since then, she has started a first-of-its-kind adult literacy program and achieved other career accolades such as earning her master’s and doctoral degrees from Teachers College, Columbia University. According to the press release, Dr. Gottesman and her late husband, David S. Gottesman, have a long history of charitable giving when it comes to the college. … Dr. Gottesman added that each year, students at Albert Einstein College of Medicine earn their degrees and “leave as superbly trained scientists and compassionate and knowledgeable physicians, with the expertise to find new ways to prevent diseases and provide the finest health care to communities here in the Bronx and all over the world.”
Yes, I absolutely got choked up watching the YouTube video. The immediate and deafening sound that erupts from the audience was humbling. People have a right to an education — something that will enable them to later put back into their communities — without starting adulthood in outrageous debt. Dr. Gottesman has noted that she especially wanted to lift this burden of debt, as well as expand the pool of candidates who can now consider Einstein for medical school. (Though of course, the cost of and access to education that precedes medical school remains a factor.) Obviously Dr. Gottesman has a direct connection to Einstein College, but there is more significance to such a landmark donation going to the Bronx school. The Bronx is both the poorest NYC borough and unhealthiest New York county. Hopefully this monumental donation will change the statistics for the Bronx in particular, and learning institutions at large.
So — Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffet, Charles Koch, Jim Walton, Michael Bloomberg… Have anything to announce right now?
Her husband notably invested in Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway early in the 60s/70s and held onto to those shares.
I hope they can stay tuition free – both Rice University and Cooper Union had to stop eventually.
I loved this so much!! I was so happy for the students.
God, that warms my soul. Capitalism has taken over our lives. It’s taken over higher education and there’s little genuine appreciation for education left. So nice to see someone with massive resources who actually understands its fundamental value. If Apartheid Clyde had $1 billion at his disposal, he’d spend it on his big flying throbbing members. Thank God for people like this woman, what a hero.
They have been doing free education in other countries – I hope billionaires in the US start doing this more!!! Talk about a tax write-off too! Win win
That’s amazing, but I feel for the students who narrowly missed that window because they either had just graduated from this college prior to the incredible donation, or will enroll years after the donation money has dried up for currently enrolled students.
A billion dollars, well invested, isn’t likely to dry up for quite a while — if ever.
As to the recent graduates, this is a great call for loan forgiveness— particularly for those who work in under-resourced areas.
What’s wonderful too, is the large numbers of potential students, who could become excellent physicians — who now have an option that can make that possible.
Love this!!!!
What’s also wonderful is that it will dramatically improve access to health care in the Bronx and underserved communities — as without the grinding stress of loans, many new physicians may commit to careers and specialties that may offer lower pay or less prestigious career ladders — but that offer much needed resources and care. Truly, this has warmed my heart. Watching the video with the students had me in tears.
I love seeing someone do something amazing with their money that will be incredibly impactful for generations to come.
I also hate that we must rely on the charitable impulses of billionaires to make these things happen.
I love this.
And to point out – this doesn’t just help people become doctors who maybe were afraid of the large amount of SLs required, or didn’t qualify for them etc – it will also hopefully encourage some of those students to go into lower paying medical fields if they don’t have 250, 300k (or more!) in SLs to repay. I’ve known a few in medical school who want to be primary care physicians, or pediatricians, but dermatology pays a lot better (residencies are harder to get into too, but lets put that aside for a minute.) And when you’re staring down a quarter of a million in SLs (and a lot of med students have more bc you need loans for tuition and for living expenses), the higher paying specialties are just going to be more attractive.
so this might help those students who want to go into a lower paying specialty but before felt they had look for something with more income potential because of those loans.
This is, of course, absolutely wonderful for the medical school students who benefit directly. I’m curious about the ripple effect. Will billionaires see endowing universities as a feather in their cap/legacy (with which they seem universally obsessed)? If enough universities are endowed will it force those who aren’t to lower tuition prices to compete for the best students? I’m no economist but I’d love to see this modeled out…
The problem is they avoid paying their share of taxes but then “kindly” donate a hospital wing that costs less than the taxes would be, to look and feel good.
(But the lady in this case is amazing.)
Philanthropy is reputation-laundering.
I did my residency and fellowship in the Montefiore/Einstein system although did not go to med school there, and while it has its issues (mostly due to huge patient volume in an under-served population), it’s really a great place with dedicated doctors, nurses, and other staff. My older child was born there and I’ll always have a soft spot for it in my heart. This news was so joyful!
This woman had a billion $ and she invested it into a community.
How many male billionaires can we think of are spending their billions on stupid toys for themselves. They could do this several times over if they wanted to.
Great news! Eliminating student loan debt the right way!
This is the most uplifting piece of news I’ve read in a long long time <3
AECOM is my alma mater. I have nothing good to say about the school. It doesn’t have a history of making its students a high priority. I hope the money changes that.