Ruth Gottesman, 93, widow of Warren Buffett protégé David Gottesman, gifted $1 billion to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine to cover tuition for all students, The New York Times reported.
The school in the Bronx was formerly the medical school of Yeshiva University, another institution that the Gottesman family has also supported. The university’s Washington Heights campus is home to the Mendel Gottesman Library Building.
“We congratulate the Gottesman family for their visionary leadership in significantly advancing Einstein’s founding mission to expand access for all students to top-tier medical education,” stated Ari Berman, a rabbi and president of Yeshiva University.
“For decades, Einstein has generated groundbreaking research and world-class physicians. This is a monumental day for our affiliated medical school and for values-based medical education,” he added.
Einstein’s library, the D. Samuel Gottesman Library, is closed on Shabbat.
Einstein earned the right to confer its own graduate and medical degrees in 2019. It is now affiliated with both Montefiore Health System and Yeshiva University, according to its website.
A former professor at Einstein, Ruth Gottesman’s donation is one of the largest ever to a U.S. educational institution and “most likely the largest to a medical school,” per the Times.
Gottesman, who holds a doctorate in education, chairs Einstein’s board of trustees.
Tuition was previously about $59,000 annually at Einstein, which U.S. News & World Report ranks No. 42 for research at medical schools nationwide and No. 61 for primary care.
“We have terrific medical students, but this will open it up for many other students whose economic status is such that they wouldn’t even think about going to medical school,” Gottesman told the Times. One of the conditions, the paper added, is that Einstein not change its name.
“We’ve got the gosh darn name,” Gottesman said. “We’ve got Albert Einstein.”
