Four historically Black medical schools will share a $600 million donation from Bloomberg Philanthropies to improve racial wealth equity and bolster the population of Black healthcare providers.
The donations will be used for scholarships and to improve infrastructure, including technology, at the schools.
Related article: Montefiore's medical school receives $1B donation
Bloomberg Philanthropies donated $175 million each to Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee, Howard University College of Medicine in Washington and Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta. It also made a gift of $75 million to Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles and contributed $5 million in seed funding for the creation of Xavier Ochsner College of Medicine in New Orleans.
Meharry received $34 million in 2020 from Bloomberg Philanthropies, part of a $100 million donation round to historically Black medical schools. The funds were used to help cut down student debt, said Dr. James Hildreth, Meharry's president and CEO.
Hildreth said the school will need additional financial support to reach its goal of providing free tuition.
"When people see the size of this gift, they may be of the opinion that Meharry is now set for a long time in terms of our needs," Hildreth said. "But that's not true. This gift will help us assist our students, but it's nowhere near enough to what other schools are doing, which is to allow students to attend tuition-free."
Tuition aid to support the healthcare worker pipeline is becoming more popular. Last month, Bloomberg Philanthropies donated $1 billion to Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, making tuition free for all medical students. In February, Montefiore Health System’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York voided tuition for its students after a $1 billion donation from Ruth Gottesman, widow of billionaire David Gottesman, an early investor in Berkshire Hathaway.
Meharry Medical College, which has been open for nearly 150 years, has approximately 450 students and hopes to double its population in the future, Hildreth said.
The donations are part of Bloomberg Philanthropies' ongoing Greenwood Initiative aimed at improving diversity and increasing the number of medical providers.
