Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has donated $1 billion to Johns Hopkins University. This generous gift will make the university’s medical school free for a majority of students and significantly increase financial aid for students at other Hopkins graduate schools.
Starting in the fall of 2024, students pursuing an MD from families earning under $300,000, which represents 95% of all Americans, will receive free tuition. Additionally, living expenses on top of tuition and fees will be covered for medical students from families earning up to $175,000. This threshold includes the vast majority of families in the U.S. Nearly two-thirds of current and entering medical students at Johns Hopkins will immediately qualify for either free tuition or free tuition plus living expenses.
This donation aims to remove economic barriers that prevent America’s most promising students from low-income and middle-class families from pursuing their dreams of saving lives and making an impact on their communities. It also addresses the serious shortage of doctors, nurses, and public health professionals in the U.S., especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The donation will also increase financial aid for students at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing and the Bloomberg School of Public Health. Students seeking graduate degrees in education, engineering, business, international studies, government, and the arts from low- and middle-income backgrounds will also benefit from increased financial aid.
This initiative is expected to attract more of the nation’s brightest students to pursue fields that inspire them, rather than ones that will best enable them to repay graduate school loans. The donation builds on Bloomberg’s 2018 gift for undergraduate aid at Johns Hopkins University and furthers his commitment to addressing complex American health challenges.
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