If You Had $1 Billion to Give Away, What Charity Would You Support?

Having $1 billion is hard to imagine. It’s probably even harder to imagine having that much money to give away.

If you were fortunate enough to have millions or billions of dollars, what causes or charities would you support?

In “$1 Billion Donation Will Provide Free Tuition at a Bronx Medical School,” Joseph Goldstein writes about a remarkable philanthropic gift made by Ruth Gottesman, 93, a longtime professor:

The 93-year-old widow of a Wall Street financier has donated $1 billion to a Bronx medical school, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, with instructions that the gift be used to cover tuition for all students going forward.

The donor, Ruth Gottesman, is a former professor at Einstein, where she studied learning disabilities, developed a screening test and ran literacy programs. It is one of the largest charitable donations to an educational institution in the United States and most likely the largest to a medical school.

The fortune came from her late husband, David Gottesman, known as Sandy, who was a protégé of Warren Buffett and had made an early investment in Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate Mr. Buffett built.

The donation is notable not only for its staggering size, but also because it is going to a medical institution in the Bronx, the city’s poorest borough. The Bronx has a high rate of premature deaths and ranks as the unhealthiest county in New York. Over the past generation, a number of billionaires have given hundreds of millions of dollars to better-known medical schools and hospitals in Manhattan, the city’s wealthiest borough.

Dr. Gottesman said her donation would enable new doctors to begin their careers without medical school debt, which often exceeds $200,000. She also hoped it would broaden the student body to include people who could not otherwise afford to go to medical school.

While her husband ran an investment firm, First Manhattan, Dr. Gottesman had a long career at Einstein, a well-regarded medical school, starting in 1968, when she took a job as director of psychoeducational services. She has long been on Einstein’s board of trustees and is currently the chair.

The article continues:

Dr. Gottesman’s husband died in 2022 at age 96. “He left me, unbeknownst to me, a whole portfolio of Berkshire Hathaway stock,” she recalled. The instructions were simple: “Do whatever you think is right with it,” she recalled.

It was overwhelming to think about, so at first she didn’t. But her children encouraged her not to wait too long.

When she focused on the bequest, she realized immediately what she wanted to do, she recalled. “I wanted to fund students at Einstein so that they would receive free tuition,” she said. There was enough money to do that in perpetuity, she said.

Over the years, she had interviewed dozens of prospective Einstein medical students. Tuition is more than $59,000 a year, and many graduated with crushing medical school debt. According to the school, nearly 50 percent of its students owed more than $200,000 after graduating. At most other New York City medical schools, less than 25 percent of new doctors owed that much.

Students, read the entire article and then tell us:

• What cause or causes would you support if you were a millionaire or billionaire philanthropist? Why?

• What is your reaction to Dr. Gottesman’s decision to donate $1 billion to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, with instructions that the gift be used to cover tuition for all students going forward? Do you think her generosity will inspire others?

• Do you think giving to charitable causes is important? Why? Do you believe the wealthy have any extra obligation to give money to altruistic causes?

• A condition of Dr. Gottesman’s gift is that the Einstein College of Medicine not change its name. Ginia Bellafante writes that this gift was “remarkable not only for its size but also for the absence of any apparent vanity surrounding it.” What do you think about the size of the gift and the way that Dr. Gottesman made her donation?

• How do you give to others? Do you donate money, time or other resources to charities you care about? If so, how do you decide which causes to support?

Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public and may appear in print.

Find more Student Opinion questions here. Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate these prompts into your classroom.