Albert Einstein College of Medicine, a medical school in the Bronx, New York, has announced that it will offer free tuition to all its students, thanks to a historic $1 billion donation from Ruth L. Gottesman, Ed.D., the chair of the Einstein Board of Trustees and a Montefiore Health System board member.
The donation, which is the largest made to any medical school in the United States, will enable generations of future doctors to pursue their education without the burden of debt and to focus on the school’s mission of advancing research and care for underserved communities.
The donation “will ensure that no student at Einstein will have to pay tuition again,” the medical school said in a press release.
Dr. Philip Ozuah, the president and CEO of Montefiore Einstein, the umbrella organization for Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Health System, said that the gift “will transform the lives of our students, our patients, and the communities we serve.”
Dr. Yaron Tomer, the Marilyn and Stanley Katz Dean at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, said that the donation “radically revolutionizes our ability to continue attracting students who are committed to our mission, not just those who can afford it.”
He added that the donation will also “free up and lift our students, enabling them to pursue projects and ideas that might otherwise be prohibitive.”
All current fourth-year students will be reimbursed their spring 2024 semester tuition, and all students moving forward will receive free tuition at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, starting from August of this year.
Albert Einstein College of Medicine was founded in 1955 with a mission to welcome all students, without restrictions.
Today, the school has more than 2,000 faculty members, 724 medical students, 248 Ph.D. students, 117 M.D.-Ph.D. students, and 368 postdoctoral fellows.
Dr. Gottesman, who joined Einstein’s Children’s Evaluation and Rehabilitation Center (CERC) in 1968, is a former faculty member and a pioneer in the field of learning disabilities.
She developed screening, evaluation, and treatment modalities that have helped tens of thousands of children and founded the Adult Literacy Program and the Emily Fisher Landau Center for the Treatment of Learning Disabilities at CERC.
She said in a statement that she is “honoured and humbled” to make the donation and that she hopes it will “inspire others to support the extraordinary work being done at Einstein and Montefiore.”
