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.

  • SOMETHINGSWRONG@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    4 months ago

    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

    • catloaf@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

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

      • doingthestuff@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        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.

        • lud@lemm.ee
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          4 months ago

          Nope it just makes a small number of doctors wealthier.

          No, it will the lives better for 2/3 of students. I can’t see how this is bad in anyway. Why would it be bad to make education free for some of the best future medical professionals.

    • snooggums@midwest.social
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      4 months ago

      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!

    • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
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      4 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@lemmy.world
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      4 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.

    • AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net
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      4 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.

    • Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      I knew Lemmy could spin this into a negative. I was counting on it actually. The most cynical message board hands down.

      • NιƙƙιDιɱҽʂ@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        True, we should instead just celebrate this small one-off victory and forget the systemic issues that plague us. As long as the billionaires throw us a rare bone, we can leave the guillotines at home ig.

        • aname@lemmy.one
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          4 months ago

          You mean we cannot selebrate the small victories and continue working for more.

          Don’t be such a sith.

          • NιƙƙιDιɱҽʂ@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            Not a strawman. The comment you responded to originally acknowledged both the positive and negative sides of this. Meanwhile, you commented only on the negative side as if we aren’t allowed to acknowledge it. I called you out based entirely on the words you chose to use.

            If this isn’t wasn’t what you intended to communicate, then I recommend you revise your former comment.