this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2024
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Most medical students at Johns Hopkins University will no longer pay tuition thanks to a $1 billion gift from Bloomberg Philanthropies announced Monday.

Starting in the fall, the donation will cover full tuition for medical students from families earning less than $300,000. Living expenses and fees will be covered for students from families who earn up to $175,000.

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[–] [email protected] 269 points 5 months ago (11 children)

Uplifting: this is objectively a ton of good done for these students

Dystopian: this money was earned by the theft of value produced by working class labor and throwing a few breadcrumbs of it back into the system and acting like it’s some great pure good is pure evil and people will lap it up like dogs

[–] [email protected] 126 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Yeah. Bloomberg and the other billionaires should be taxed enough so that we can fund this and other social programs for everyone.

[–] doingthestuff 10 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yes I hate it when the ultra rich decide to create a handful of "winners" leaving 99.9% of us still fucked. Will this make my future healthcare more affordable? Nope it just makes a small number of doctors wealthier.

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[–] LustyArgonianMana 2 points 5 months ago

Right? It's almost like free education is good for society

[–] [email protected] 70 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Medical education could have been free this whole time through taxes but instead public funding of secondary education was gutted instead of expanded so rich fucks like Bloomburg could keep more money for themselves.

So even worse!

[–] [email protected] 21 points 5 months ago

Even more negative outlook:

The world is dying and fascism is rising and you spend a billion dollars on doctors not graduating with debt? They're guaranteed quality employment! It's the goddamn Dark Ages residency workload that depresses them!

[–] NutWrench 13 points 5 months ago

Yup. Every time there's a feel-good story like, "a corporate donor spent $20,000 so a dozen orphans didn't have to be fed into the Orphan Crushing Machine" the media never questions why the Orphan Crushing Machine needs to exist in the first place.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

Rich people like to talk about philanthropy and charity being very good, and sometimes they speak as though the act of giving is virtuous and transformative for the person doing the giving. I agree with that, at least, but I think it's pretty fucked up that they perpetuate systems that both enable and require acts of charity. Kindness and charity would still necessary and good in a more equal world, but more people would have access to it if there were less wealth hoarding.

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[–] HogsTooth 51 points 5 months ago (3 children)

The original Hippocratic Oath made you swear not to charge to teach people about medicine.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago

It also made you promise not to do surgery and medical knowledge revolved around balancing bile.

[–] dohpaz42 14 points 5 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The Oath was rewritten in 1964 by Dr. Louis Lasagna

I nearly died when I read Dr. Lasagna

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago

He's sort of a cheesy guy on the surface but he has layers.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 5 months ago (1 children)

With a billion dollars, I'd just buy enough congressman to make university free for everyone. They're not even that expensive

[–] FireTower 8 points 5 months ago (2 children)

He did try to buy an election already.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago

That's where he fucked up, it's so much cheaper to timeshare a politician that to be one.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

True, true. Funny how it's so much cheaper to own an elected official than it is to be one

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[–] HeyJoe 17 points 5 months ago (3 children)

It says starting in the fall it will be free, but how long does 1 billion last? How many years will they be able to do this for now?

[–] gibmiser 46 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Endowments aim to achieve perpetual existence by only spending dividends from investments. Assume growth of 8% of a billion means they can spend 80 million dollars a year without shrinking the endowment.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 5 months ago

And that really highlights the absolute absurdity of billionaires existing at all

😃

[–] NotMyOldRedditName 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

The 4% rule can fail during some cycles, an 8% withdrawal would have numerous failure rates.

You'd have to be willing to adjust heavily during downturns, probably yearly. Adjusting like that could cause uncertainty and make it difficult to apply for all students.

3.5% over an extended period had no failures on any cycle.

The 3.5% was looking at very early retirement, such as 35/40yr old.

Edit: just want to add, those failures on the 4% were small. It was like if you started the cycle on 1 of 2 months many years ago and made no changes when shit got very bad, it would fail. The majority of the time you end up with vastly more money. But also past performance doesn't guarantee future performance so who knows, but there is some risk.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The operating expenses will show a sudden and totally coincidental billion dollar increase in 2024, and tuition will be collected as usual in 2025.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago

The Internet says that the total cost for a degree from Johns Hopkins medical student per year is $64,665. In addition, various indirect costs like books, housing, healthcare, various fees, living expenses, and so on, bring that same estimate up to around $105,000 annually.

$1,000,000,000 invested in a stupid boring index fund at an estimated 4% return yields $40,000,000 in interest alone, or, using the above numbers, enough for 380(.95) students each year.

Based on this quick page from their own website: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/som/education-programs/md-program/our-students/class-statistics

Wherein they accept just 266 students, it could last for a very long time.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Big doomer comment section

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

This is the fediverse, what do you expect? There will always be something to be complaining about here!

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[–] VelvetStorm 6 points 5 months ago

I am choosing to only see the uplifting stuff here and rejecting the bad.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

Must be nice being elite and to get free education haha

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