Most medical students at Johns Hopkins University will no longer have to pay tuition thanks to a $1 billion grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies announced Monday.
Starting this fall, the gift will cover full tuition for medical students from families earning less than $300,000. Living expenses and expenses will be covered for students from families earning up to $175,000.
According to Bloomberg Philanthropies, nearly two-thirds of all students pursuing MD degrees at Johns Hopkins currently qualify for financial aid. Future doctors graduate from the university with an average total student loan debt of about $104,000.
The gift will also increase financial support for students in university faculties of nursing, public health and other postgraduate programs.
“By lowering the financial barriers to these essential fields, we can give more students the freedom to pursue careers they are passionate about — and enable them to serve more of the families and communities that need them most,” Michael Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies and Bloomberg LP, said in a statement Monday. Bloomberg earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Johns Hopkins University in 1964.
Bloomberg Philanthropies donated $1.8 billion to Johns Hopkins in 2018 to ensure that undergraduate students are admitted regardless of their family income.
In February Ruth Gottesmanformer professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and widow of a Wall Street investor, announced that she donated $1 billion to the school. The gift means that four-year students will get free tuition right away, while everyone else will benefit in the fall.
There have been only a handful of previous $1 billion donations to universities in the US, most of which have occurred in recent years.
In 2022, venture capitalist John Doerr and his wife Ann $1.1 billion for Stanford University for a new school that focuses on climate change.
The small liberal arts school, McPherson College, in Kansas, has two matching promises since 2022 from an anonymous donor with a total of $1 billion. The school, with about 800 enrolled students, has an auto restoration program and is located about 57 miles north of Wichita, Kansas.
Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York, gave $3 billion for charities in 2023making him one of the largest donors, according to research by the Chronicle of Philanthropy.