NEW YORK, NY – Michael Bloomberg Philanthropies recently announced a new $600 million gift to help bolster the endowments of the nation’s four historically Black medical schools: Charles R. Drew University of Medicine & Science, Howard University College of Medicine, Meharry Medical College, and Morehouse School of Medicine.
Seed funding will also be given to support the creation of the Xavier Ochsner College of Medicine, a new medical school in New Orleans, Louisiana.
The medical schools at Howard, Meharry, and Morehouse will each receive a gift of $175 million, and Charles R. Drew University of Medicine & Science will receive $75 million. The new funding will more than double the existing endowments of three of the schools.
Funding levels were determined by current class size and anticipated growth. In addition, the Xavier Ochsner College of Medicine, an HBCU medical school being developed in New Orleans, will receive a $5 million grant. Xavier Ochsner is a partnership between Xavier University of Louisiana—one of the top educators in the US of Black students who go on to graduate from medical school—and Ochsner Health—the leading not-for-profit academic health care provider in the Gulf South.
The Bloomberg Philanthropies’ investment is part of its “Greenwood Initiative,” an effort that seeks to advance racial wealth equity including addressing systemic underinvestment in Black institutions and communities. The funding will fuel the historically Black medical schools’ long-established commitments to diversifying the medical field and training the next generation of doctors. Increasing each school’s endowments will strengthen its financial stability and institutional capacity to respond to the rising costs of tuition, innovative research, and…
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