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] 268 points 2 months ago (12 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 2 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.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 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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[–] [email protected] 70 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 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!

[–] Apytele 3 points 2 months ago

My state essentially made nursing school free along with some other high demand positions in high demand fields but it's just for community colleges so you'd still have to pay for medical school.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 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!

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 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 2 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.

[–] mindbleach 3 points 2 months ago

Seriously, is a single billion all it takes? There's a dozen assholes in America alone who could do this for a dozen colleges each, and not even notice.

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 2 months ago (3 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago

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

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] transientpunk 16 points 2 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 2 months ago

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

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 2 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

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (2 children)

He did try to buy an election already.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 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 2 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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[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 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?

[–] [email protected] 46 points 2 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 2 months ago

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

😃

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 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 2 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 2 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 2 months ago (2 children)

Big doomer comment section

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

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

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