He donated $1,000 million to fund the entire careers of college students

A 93-year-old former professor at a private medical school in New York City donated billions of dollars to university, ensuring that students no longer have to pay annual tuition or fees.

The donation is one of the largest acts of philanthropy ever publicly received by an educational institution in the United States. and will make undiscounted annual tuition of nearly $60,000 free for students.

“The Albert Einstein College of Medicine has received a transformative gift from Ruth L. GottesmanEd.D., Chairman of the Board of Directors of Einstein and a member of the Board of Directors of Montefiore Health System,” read a statement from the organization.

The school and its affiliated hospital, Montefiore Medical Center, are located in the Bronx, New York City’s poorest borough, where health data is among the worst in the eastern American state, according to official statistics.

Gottesman, 93, was a clinical professor of pediatrics at Einstein and the wife of David Gottesman, a former Wall Street financier. They have been major donors to the education center throughout their lives.

Who is Ruth Gottesman?

With a doctorate in Education from Columbia University, the professor joined the Albert Einstein Center for Child Evaluation and Rehabilitation in 1968.

There, in an era when learning disabilities were often unrecognized and misdiagnosed, he developed widely used screening, assessment and treatment modalities that, according to the university, have helped tens of thousands of children.

But where did the luck that allowed such a generous gift come from?

The benefactor is also the widow of David “Sandy” Gottesman, who He was an early investor in Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffet’s multinational conglomerate.

Sandy, to whom Ruth was married for 72 years, died in September 2022 at the age of 96.

“He left me, without my knowledge, an entire portfolio of Berkshire Hathaway stock,” the professor told the New York Times. The instructions were very simple: “Do what you think is right.”

Although he never knew what his wife ultimately decided to do with the fortune, it is likely that she would have given her approval.

Over the course of his life, the investor, whose fortune was estimated by Forbes at $3 billion at the time of his death, donated $330 million to charity.