This is a gift that will allow many Americans to avoid starting their careers in debt.
The Albert Einstein College of Medicine, a medical school located in the Bronx, received a billion-dollar donation from a former professor at the establishment.
Ruth Gottesman, 93, the widow of a Wall Street financier, made the donation with instructions that it be used to cover the tuition of all students wishing to attend the institution.
These amount to more than 59,000 dollars per year (more than 54,000 euros) and often exceed 200,000 dollars (more than 184,000 euros), specifies the New York Times.
The American daily also affirms that this is one of the largest charitable donations made to an educational establishment in the United States, and probably the largest to a medical school.
In addition, the donation will be intended for a hospital affiliated with the medical school located in the Bronx, the poorest and most unsanitary neighborhood in New York.
Students in tears
Upon learning the news, communicated by the generous donor herself in front of many students, the latter were exultant and some were in tears, as we can see in a video shared on the social network X.
We are profoundly grateful that Dr. Ruth Gottesman, Professor Emerita of Pediatrics at @EinsteinMed, has made a transformational gift to #MontefioreEinstein—the largest to any medical school in the country—that ensures no student has to pay tuition again.
https://t.co/XOy9HZLbfD pic.twitter.com/1ijv02jHFk
— Montefiore Health System (@MontefioreNYC) February 26, 2024
If this donation will allow future students to launch their careers without the burden of a heavy debt, Ruth Gottesman also hopes that it will help attract other students.
“We have excellent medical students, but this is going to open the door for many more students whose economic situation is such that they don't even think about going to medical school,” she said .
Over the course of her career, Ruth Gottesman has studied learning disabilities, developed a screening test, and directed literacy programs at the New York facility.
Her fortune comes from her husband who died in 2022, David Gottesman, director of the investment company First Manhattan and former protégé of a famous American businessman and billionaire, Warren Buffett.