Dive Brief:
- Bloomberg Philanthropies is donating $600 million to the nation’s four historically Black medical schools to help strengthen their endowments and diversify the medical field, according to an announcement on Tuesday.
- Howard University’s College of Medicine, Meharry Medical College and Morehouse School of Medicine will each be gifted $175 million, while the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science will get $75 million.
- The philanthropic group will also give $5 million to the Xavier Ochsner College of Medicine, which is currently under development. The institution — a collaboration between Xavier University of Louisiana, a historically Black college, and Ochsner Health — is slated to launch in downtown New Orleans once it secures preliminary accreditation.
Dive Insight:
Bloomberg Philanthropies — founded by businessman and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg — has made investing in medical education a priority.
The latest round of donations comes just one month after the organization announced a $1 billion donation to Johns Hopkins University to make medical school tuition-free for students with household incomes under $300,000.
This also isn’t the first time Bloomberg Philanthropies has donated to the four historically Black medical schools. In 2020, the organization gave $100 million total to the institutions. And in 2021, it gave another $6 million total to the institutions to help them provide COVID-19 vaccines to underserved people in their communities.
The new gifts to medical schools are part of the organization’s Greenwood Initiative, which aims to remedy chronic “underinvestment in Black institutions and communities,” the organization said in the announcement.
“We have much more to do to build a country where every person, regardless of race, has equal access to quality health care — and where students from all backgrounds can pursue their dreams,” Bloomberg said in a Tuesday statement.
“By building on our previous support, this gift will empower new generations of Black doctors to create a healthier and more equitable future for our country,” he said.
The announcement pointed to long-standing disparities in the medical field.
In 2021, Black or African American people made up 12.1% of the U.S. population, Census estimates show. Yet only 5.7% of practicing physicians were Black or African American in 2021, according to a report from the Association of American Medical Colleges.
Meanwhile, recent research links higher representation of Black primary care physicians to greater longevity for Black individuals.
“Inequity in our healthcare systems is far too great a cost to our economy and our collective well-being,” Garnesha Ezediaro, head of the Greenwood Initiative, said in a statement. “Ultimately, the benefits of this gift will be realized in the communities where the next generation of Black doctors practice and among patients who receive their care.”
Leaders of the four historically Black medical colleges praised the donations Tuesday.
Howard officials said the new funding will help the institution’s medical school manage increasing tuition rates and support research.
“Because of this day, the onus of the financial commitment that usually hangs over the head of many minority medical students will be lifted,” Dr. Andrea Hayes Dixon, dean of Howard’s medical college, said in a statement.
Meharry Medical President, Dr. James Hildreth, said the donation marked “a momentous day” in the institution’s 148-year-old history, accelerating its “mission to serve the underserved of our nation and world.”
Dr. Valerie Montgomery Rice, president of Morehouse School of Medicine, said the donation would provide solid financial footing for the institution. Officials there noted that Bloomberg Philanthropies’ previous donation to the medical school — $26 million in 2022 — helped lower debt levels for its student body.
In the 2019-20 academic year, over 4 in 10 Morehouse School of Medicine graduates held at least $250,000 in debt. By 2023-24, that share shrank to a little under 19% of graduates, according to the institution’s announcement.
A 2020 $7.7 million gift from Bloomberg Philanthropies to the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science helped the institution get preliminary accreditation for its four-year medical degree program, which enrolled its first class in fall 2023, officials said in an announcement.
“CDU’s MD program is new, and this donation adds a level of stability that will further our capacity to improve the health, economic development, and opportunities for the children in our surrounding communities and others like them,” Dr. Deborah Prothrow-Stith, dean of the institution’s medical college, said in a statement.
