Montefiore Health System's Albert Einstein College of Medicine received a $1 billion donation from Ruth Gottesman, chair of the Einstein Board of Trustees and a Montefiore board member.
The donation will cover tuition for students at the New York City-based medical school, the health system said Monday. It is one of the largest donations made to a U.S. medical school.
Related article: What health systems did this year to recruit, retain workers
All current fourth-year students at the college will be reimbursed for their spring semester, the health system said. Beginning in August, all incoming students will receive free tuition. The medical school has about 1,000 students.
"This donation radically revolutionizes our ability to continue attracting students who are committed to our mission, not just those who can afford it," Dr. Yaron Tomer, the Marilyn and Stanley Katz Dean at Albert Einstein College of Medicine said in a news release. "Additionally, it will free up and lift our students, enabling them to pursue projects and ideas that might otherwise be prohibitive."
Gottesman, 93, is the widow of billionaire David Gottesman, who founded an investment advisory firm and was an early investor in Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway.
She has a long relationship with the school, having joined its Children's Evaluation and Rehabilitation Center in 1968. She implemented an adult literacy program and later became the founding director of the Emily Fisher Landau Center for the Treatment of Learning Disabilities. She is a clinical professor emerita of pediatrics at the school.
