Tuition will be free at a New York City medical school thanks to a $1 billion gift

By Ayana Archie

Published February 26, 2024 at 11:30 PM CST

The $1 billion donation from Dr. Ruth Gottesman to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine is one of the largest ever charitable gifts to an educational institution in the United States.

Students at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine will no longer have to pay tuition after the school received a $1 billion donor gift.

Ruth Gottesman, who is chairperson of the college's board of trustees, made the donation using money left to her by her late husband, financier David Gottesman, who was a friend of Warren Buffett and whose company, First Manhattan Co., was an early investor in Berkshire Hathaway, according to Forbes.

Students in their fourth year at Einstein, located in the Bronx in New York City, will be reimbursed for the spring 2024 semester, and beginning in August, tuition will be free "in perpetuity," the school said Monday.

"This donation radically revolutionizes our ability to continue attracting students who are committed to our mission, not just those who can afford it," the school said. "Additionally, it will free up and lift our students, enabling them to pursue projects and ideas that might otherwise be prohibitive."

"Each year, well over 100 students enter Albert Einstein College of Medicine in their quest for degrees in medicine and science," Gottesman said. "They 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."

She added, "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."

The Gottesmans have donated heavily to the school in the past.

Gottesman joined the Einstein College of Medicine's Children's Evaluation and Rehabilitation Center (CERC) in 1968, where she conducted research about learning difficulties in children. While at CERC, she started the Adult Literacy Program and became the founding director of the Emily Fisher Landau Center for the Treatment of Learning Disabilities. She is also a clinical professor emerita of pediatrics at Einstein.