Students at a medical school in the Bronx will no longer pay tuition after it received a $1 billion donation, the college said Monday.
Gottesman said in a statement that she was thankful that her husband, David Gottesman, who had been a business partner of Warren Buffett, left her the money when he died in 2022.
“I feel blessed to be given the great privilege of making this gift to such a worthy cause,” she said.
Einstein’s tuition is about $60,000 per year. With the costs of books and room and board, the school estimates, students’ expenses can total about $100,000.
The school said in its release that it hopes the gift will allow medical education for people from diverse backgrounds who may otherwise not be able to afford tuition. Of the college’s first-year class, more than half of the 183 students are women and about 18 percent self-identify as being from an underrepresented group.
Einstein opened in 1955, originally as a part of Yeshiva University, a private Jewish school in New York. While the university grants the college of medicine’s degrees, Einstein moved under the oversight of Montefiore Health System in 2015.
Gottesman’s donation, the college said, would make it possible for students to pursue medical degrees “free from the burden of crushing loan indebtedness.” The donation is probably the largest to a medical school, according to the New York Times.
Tuition will be free starting in August, and current fourth-year students will be reimbursed for the spring 2024 semester, the college said.
Before the announcement Monday, Einstein students were called to a mandatory meeting, but they weren’t told what it was about.
As soon as she spoke the news, the crowd erupted into claps and cheers, some jumping up to their feet and others wiping away tears.
After the meeting, when Einstein professor Peter Campbell walked into his class of about 20 first-year students, he said they all spent the first 15 minutes of lecture time talking about the news.
The classroom, Campbell said, felt “electric.”
“If you’re a concertgoer, you know the feeling when a band that you’ve been waiting for forever is about to walk in?” he said. “That’s the only atmosphere that I can think of that is even close.”
He hopes the donation will help some students choose their specialties.
“Those students are probably now better empowered to do the kind of medicine that they want to and not the kind of medicine that pays the best,” Campbell said.
Long before Monday’s announcement, Gottesman and her husband had established a relationship with Einstein.
In 1968, Gottesman joined Einstein’s Children’s Evaluation and Rehabilitation Center, where she worked on screening tools for learning problems, the college said. She worked on learning disabilities for decades.
In 2008, she and her husband donated $25 million to Einstein, which led to the creation of the school’s stem cell and regenerative institute that bears their names.
Yaron Tomer, the college’s dean, said Monday’s donation “radically revolutionizes our ability to continue attracting students who are committed to our mission, not just those who can afford it.”
“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,” Tomer said in a statement.
During the application cycle for its class of 2027, Einstein admitted 183 students from 9,012 applicants — an acceptance rate of about 2 percent.
After the gift announcement, Campbell says, the application pool will only grow.
“I suspect we’re going to need a much bigger admissions committee,” he said.
