"To Attend Medical School for Free..." Former Professor Donates 1.3 Trillion Won

A woman in her 90s living in New York, Ruth Gottesman (93), donated $1 billion (approximately 1.332 trillion KRW) to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, affiliated with Yeshiva University in New York, where she once served as a professor. This is the largest donation ever received by a medical school in the United States.

Major foreign media outlets such as The New York Times (NYT) and the British daily The Guardian reported on the 26th (local time) that the fortune donated by Ms. Gottesman was inherited from her husband, David Gottesman, who passed away in 2022 at the age of 96.

Mrs. Ruth Gottesman, who donated 1 billion dollars
[Photo by Albert Einstein College of Medicine website capture]

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Her husband, who died at the age of 96 in 2022, founded the Wall Street investment firm First Manhattan and was also a member of the board of Berkshire Hathaway, established by the “investment genius” Warren Buffett.

Thanks to Gottesman’s donation, the Einstein College of Medicine became the second medical school in New York where students do not have to pay tuition. In 2018, New York University School of Medicine was the first to implement a full tuition waiver policy for all students. The annual tuition at Einstein College of Medicine is $59,458 (approximately 80 million KRW).

On the day of the donation, Gottesman explained her reason, saying, “I hope that new doctors can start their careers without student loan debt caused by tuition fees exceeding $200,000 (approximately 260 million KRW), and that students who cannot afford medical school tuition in the future will also be able to enroll.” The Guardian interpreted this as meaning “Gottesman’s donation means that students at this school will no longer have to pay tuition in the future.”

The NYT stated, “Gottesman’s donation is remarkable not only because of its size but also because it was made to a medical institution in the Bronx, the poorest borough of New York.”

Albert Einstein College of Medicine, USA
Photo by AP/ Yonhap News

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Regarding this donation, Ms. Gottesman set the condition that her name should not be used and that the name of the Einstein College of Medicine should not be changed. The Gottesman couple had previously donated $25 million (approximately 33.3 billion KRW) to the Einstein College of Medicine in 2008. The university used this money to establish a stem cell regeneration research institute bearing the Gottesman name.

The Einstein College of Medicine opened in 1955 and carries the name “Einstein” with the consent of the scientist Albert Einstein (1879?1955), who proposed the theory of relativity. Yeshiva University is a prestigious Jewish private university founded in 1886. Gottesman is also Jewish.

Ms. Gottesman began her academic career in 1968 by joining the pediatric rehabilitation center at the Einstein College of Medicine. She currently holds the title of Professor Emerita of Pediatrics at the medical school.

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