HEALTHY SUM

This Medical School Is Now Free Thanks to Professor’s $1 Billion Donation

Ruth Gottesman’s late husband made a fortune investing in Berkshire Hathaway.

A former medical school professor is giving $1 billion to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx to make tuition free in perpetuity. The donor, Ruth Gottesman, previously taught at the school; her late husband, David, made a fortune investing in Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate helmed by Warren Buffett. In an interview with The New York Times, Gottesman, 93, said she hadn't expected to have so much money to distribute. “He left me, unbeknownst to me, a whole portfolio of Berkshire Hathaway stock,” she said of her husband, who gave her limited directions. “Do whatever you think is right with it,” she recounted. Gottesman said she hopes the gift will widen the pipeline for med school applicants. “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,” she said. In an unusual act of humility for a billionaire megadonor, Gottesman’s donation mandated that the university keep its name, rather than swap in her own. “We’ve got the gosh darn name,” she said. “We’ve got Albert Einstein.”