$1 Billion Gift From Bloomberg Ensures Free Medical School For Most (image@JohnsHopkins)
Major part of the student population at Johns Hopkins University will no longer have to pay tuition fee thanks to Bloomberg Philanthropies. Billionaire Mike Bloomberg gifted $1 billion to the university to cover the full tuition for medical students from families earning less than $300,000. Living expenses and fees will be covered for students from families who earn up to $175,000.
Bloomberg Philanthropies, in its annual report, addressed the dual challenge of declining health and education. The gift is marked as an emphatic endorsement of the value of higher learning during a time when education has increasingly been under political attack.
Bloomberg, who is a 1964 graduate from the University, said that Washington struggles to recover from the disturbing decline in life expectancy, and faces a serious shortage of doctors, nurses, and public health professionals. He added that the high cost of medical, nursing, and graduate school often prevents students from enrolling.
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He said, “by reducing the financial barriers to these essential fields, we can free more students to pursue careers they’re passionate about — and enable them to serve more of the families and communities who need them the most”.
As per Bloomberg Philanthropies, almost two-thirds of all students seeking a doctor of medicine degree from Johns Hopkins qualify for financial aid, and 45% of the current class will also receive living expenses. The school estimates that graduates’ average total loans will decrease from $104,000 currently to $60,279 by 2029.
The donation will also increase financial aid for students at the university’s school of nursing, public health, and other graduate schools.
Ron Daniels, president of the University said that the gift will go to Johns Hopkins endowment and every penny will go directly to the students.
“Mike has really been moved by the challenges that the professions confronted during the course of the pandemic and the heroic efforts they’ve made to protecting and providing care to American citizens during the pandemic. I think he simply wanted to recognize the importance of these fields and provide this support to ensure that the best and brightest could attend medical school and the school of nursing and public health”, said Daniels during an interview.
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The Bloomberg Philanthropies previously gifted $1.8 billion to Johns Hopkins in 2018, ensuring that the undergraduates are accepted regardless of their family’s income.
Johns Hopkins is the latest medical school to offer free tuition to most or all of their medical students.
In 2020, Bloomberg gave Meharry Medical College $34 million, as part of a $100 million gift he made to four Black medical schools to help reduce the debt of their medical students for four years.
In February this year, Ruth Gottesman, a former professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the widow of a Wall Street investor, donated $1 billion to the school. The donation meant that four-year students immediately received free tuition and all other students will be offered free tuition in the fall.
Kenneth an Elaine Langone has donated $100 million to the NYU Grossman School of Medicine to make tuition fee free for all current and future medical students through an endowment programme in 2018. The couple also gave $200 million last year to the NYU Grossman Long Island School of Medicine to guarantee free tuition for all medical students.
Last year, Bloomberg, the former New York mayor donated $3 billion to charities, making him one of the biggest donors, as per research by the Chronicle of Philanthropy.
