- Person
- Michael Bloomberg
- Lived
- b. 1942
- Field
- Financial data & media
- From
- American
The story
Michael Bloomberg graduated from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in 1964 with a degree in electrical engineering, and has supported it ever since. His first gift, in 1965, was five dollars. In 2001 its School of Hygiene and Public Health was renamed the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in 2012 the Charlotte R. Bloomberg Children's Center, named for his mother, opened inside the new Johns Hopkins Hospital, and in 2013 he gave 350 million dollars, then the largest single gift in the university's history. In 2018 he gave 1.8 billion dollars so that Hopkins could admit undergraduates regardless of their ability to pay.
Medical school remained very expensive. Johns Hopkins medical graduates in the 2023-2024 school year carried an average of about 105,000 dollars in student loans, and Bloomberg warned that the high cost of medical, nursing and graduate school too often kept students from enrolling at a time when the country faced shortages of doctors, nurses and public health workers.
On July 8, 2024, Johns Hopkins announced a 1 billion dollar gift from Bloomberg Philanthropies. Beginning that autumn, tuition became free for all Johns Hopkins medical students from families earning less than 300,000 dollars a year. Students from families earning up to 175,000 dollars also had their fees and living expenses covered. Nearly two-thirds of current and incoming medical students qualified.
The gift also increased financial aid for graduate students across the university, in nursing, public health, education, engineering, business, government and policy, arts and sciences, international studies and the Peabody Institute, its arts conservatory.
By 2024 Bloomberg's total giving to Johns Hopkins had passed 4.55 billion dollars, making him the most generous living donor to any education institution in the United States. Free tuition means that students from ordinary families can choose medicine, and then choose their specialty and where to practise, without the weight of crushing debt.
Why it matters
Free tuition opens medical careers to students who could not otherwise afford them and lets new doctors choose their path without crushing debt.
About Michael Bloomberg
Fired from Wall Street in 1981, he built the Bloomberg Terminal and a global news empire, then served three terms as New York’s mayor and became one of the world’s largest philanthropists.
More about Michael Bloomberg
- Michael Bloomberg's plan created 160,000 affordable homesAs mayor, Michael Bloomberg increased funding for affordable housing through a plan that created and preserved an estimated 160,000 affordable homes in New York.
- Michael Bloomberg helps mayors govern betterThrough the Mayors Challenge and the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative, Michael Bloomberg has rewarded city innovation and trained hundreds of mayors.
- Michael Bloomberg made New York's workplaces smoke-freeIn 2003 Mayor Michael Bloomberg banned smoking in all New York City indoor workplaces, including bars and restaurants, and many cities and states followed.
- Michael Bloomberg helped protect children from drowningSince 2012 Bloomberg Philanthropies has funded drowning prevention in Bangladesh through childcare and swimming lessons; child drowning deaths fell by 80%.
- Michael Bloomberg helped close coal plants across AmericaIn 2011 Michael Bloomberg gave 50 million dollars to the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign, expanding its push to replace coal-fired power plants with clean energy.
- Michael Bloomberg backed America's Black medical schoolsMichael Bloomberg gave 100 million dollars in 2020 and 600 million dollars in 2024 to America's four historically Black medical schools.
- Bloomberg gave over a billion dollars to fight tobaccoMichael Bloomberg’s foundation has committed more than $1.6 billion since 2007 to reduce tobacco use, making it the developing world’s biggest funder of tobacco control.
- Michael Bloomberg funds safer roads and polio eradicationBloomberg Philanthropies has committed $865 million to global road safety since 2007, partnering with the WHO from 2009, and has given $200 million to help eradicate polio.
Michael Bloomberg in the news
- September 24, 2026Bloomberg Philanthropies expands free school eye care to seven more US cities
- August 19, 2026Michael Bloomberg gives $155 million for a public science hall in Boston
- June 22, 2026Bloomberg commits about $590 million to oceans, clean energy and cleaner city air
- April 28, 2026Bloomberg pledges $350 million more to cut road deaths in 13 countries
- March 10, 2026Michael Bloomberg tops the Philanthropy 50 for a third year with $4.3 billion in gifts
- February 24, 2026Bloomberg Philanthropies awards $1 million each to 24 cities in Mayors Challenge
Sources
- Michael Bloomberg Wikipedia
- Bloomberg Philanthropies Wikipedia
- Bloomberg gives $1 billion to Hopkins to make tuition free for most medical students NPR (via WUWF)
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.