medical school endowments

[yuhh]

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- Alan Norton just donated $25million to Upstate
- Bloomberg donating $1.8billion to Hopkins
- Icahn donating $200million to Sinai

Do these donations actually make a change for medical schools and students’ education/experience? What donation amount is considered significant to make a difference in research, resources, teaching? Is $25million really a groundbreaking donation that’ll shake things up? I have no idea how much money goes into medical schools so I am jw

 

[LizzyM]

Research buildings are enormously expensive. Northwestern opened a 17 story laboratory research building in 2019 with construction costs of $455 million. The major donor gave about $117 million.

Federal research dollars drive the rankings which is why Deans are always looking for ways to grow the research enterprise and why rankings are such a stupid way to decide which medical school is "best" for you as an applicant/student.

 

[yuhh]

Research buildings are enormously expensive. Northwestern opened a 17 story laboratory research building in 2019 with construction costs of $455 million. The major donor gave about $117 million.

Federal research dollars drive the rankings which is why Deans are always looking for ways to grow the research enterprise and why rankings are such a stupid way to decide which medical school is "best" for you as an applicant/student.

so a $25million donation does nothing in the big scheme of things, and personal endowments have no bearing on rankings since its not research funds from NIH

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

Most schools tend to prefer a high volume of modest, predictable donations. For example, in a class of 1500, if 500 give a tax deductible gift of 5000 a year over 50 years, that is 125000000. 30 classes and that is 3.75 billion.

 

[seeinghowitgoes]

Absolutely. It's used for research (the buildings, faculty and everything else that goes with it). Research is one (of many) reasons that DO schools cannot just become MD like some people on reddit want to so badly occur after their weekly vent session. MD schools cost hundreds of millions of dollars to open and often times have 6-12x the faculty of an osteopathic school. Plus very rigorous LCME standards (in comparison to COCA). Most DO have $0 in research and only MSUCOM has any NIH funding (measly amount). Meanwhile even low-tier MD will easily have $50m/year between the school itself and the affiliated hospital.

Sentiment is definitely true (I don’t know about the numbers but agree the “extra” stuff like research and folks working in policy and other realms is what makes MD programs unique at baseline and all that takes money - the clinical training isn’t all that different). That said, I don’t think Uber donations on top of what MD schools being in via normal donor operations (as well as clinical and research revenues) affects student experience all that much (certainly not during the timeframe of the donation), at least among MD schools.

200 mil is rarely given all at once - usually given over time to maximize tax deductions for the donor, plus it takes time to build the buildings, etc - this means a donation may not be “felt” for half a decade. Furthermore most MD programs have far more research/policy experts/policy wonks/etc than a med student could possibly learn from and work with during med school - the extra people who may be recruited after a big donation comes in is akin to a drop of water in the ocean from a student perspective because at nearly all MD programs their time is fully saturated with experience many times over.

Only caveat is look where the money is going. If it is specifically being earmarked for education than sure it may affect student experience (think about nyu becoming tuition free).

 

[Goro]

One thing I have learned about DO schools is that they (including mine), are absolutely lousy at fundraising. We have a single person for the task, while major MD schools have entire offices for fundraising.

Having been at a few MD schools in my career, a lot of the donations seem to go to buildings or conversions therein. That's why you may see the Jane Smith laboratory for X Research.

Plenty of that cash also goes for endowed Chairs. Hence, a Big Name might be Joe Wesson Professor of Oncology.

My thesis advisor got such an endowment. He always called "funny money".

 

[LizzyM]

Sometimes a smaller contribution can make a bigger impact for students. I know of a donor who made a "small" donation (low six figures) to the med school and it was funneled by donor request to fund specific activities for students particularly the summer after first year. There may be dozens of those smaller donations that you never hear about unless you scour the promotional materials the development office sends out to alumni and other donors.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

The "industry" of philanthropy is a fascinating one. Basically the commitment is stretched over time, and it helps to grow a budget or endowment so the school can get better faculty, build better facilities, or develop new curricular opportunities. Just like we may talk about the federal infrastructure bills, we're not talking about spending $2 trillion or $10 trillion in one year. Rather it is a commitment over several years which could still be subject to some change at any moment (within reason).

You would be surprised how much it costs and how much a million dollars gets eaten up if you were dedicating it to scholarships. Places that promise a debt-free education have carefully calculated what is the reasonable debt burden for any student and how much should be in the endowment fund to cover that expense plus interest over time. I agree this is a very noble thing to do, but it would help to revive some government subsidies like it happened in the 50's and 60's to keep costs low both at the national and state levels.

 

[KnightDoc]

You would be surprised how much it costs and how much a million dollars gets eaten up if you were dedicating it to scholarships. Places that promise a debt-free education have carefully calculated what is the reasonable debt burden for any student and how much should be in the endowment fund to cover that expense plus interest over time. I agree this is a very noble thing to do, but it would help to revive some government subsidies like it happened in the 50's and 60's to keep costs low both at the national and state levels.

Isn't the modern version of this the IBR and PSLF programs? Sure, the subsidies are contingent and don't go to everyone, but people who really need them, plus those who make financial sacrifices by working for certain employers, do indeed receive significant subsidies over time that serve to keep costs low relative to their future income.