An anonymous donor gave approximately $50 million to be put toward the University of Washington’s Medical Laboratory Science Program<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
The money would help pay for the tuition of students enrolled in the UW\u2019s Medical Laboratory Science Program\u2019s senior-year clinical rotations and will also \u201chelp expand enrollment to 100 students over the next ten years”<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
Students in this field will go on to perform patient lab tests at hospitals and clinics and for public health agencies and conduct research in academic and commercial laboratories, among other jobs<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Some students at the University of Washington will now have their tuition covered \u2014 and it\u2019s all thanks to an anonymous donor.<\/p>\n
The University of Washington announced in a press release<\/a> earlier this month that the donor\u2019s approximately $50 million donation will help pay for undergraduate students enrolled in the UW\u2019s Medical Laboratory Science Program, covering their senior-year tuition for their clinical rotations.<\/p>\n According to the school, the donation will be put toward the tuition of in-state students \u2014 which costs between $4,000-$5,000 \u2014 for all medical laboratory science seniors. There are currently 70 students in the program, including 35 who have begun their senior-year clinical rotations.<\/p>\n \u201cI was shocked at first, and it took a second for me to process that they are going to pay our tuition. And then I felt a lot of relief,\u201d Jasmine Wertz, 30, a senior in the program said in UW\u2019s press release.<\/p>\n Speaking with the Seattle Times<\/a>, fellow student Jennifer Wang said the group had no idea what was coming ahead of the announcement event, just that they’d been told to prepare for big news \u2014 and to \u201cdress properly.”<\/p>\n \u201cWe thought we were going to be in trouble,\u201d Wang said.<\/p>\n Smith Collection\/Gado\/Getty<\/p>\n A photo of the campus of the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington<\/p>\n The students who graduate from the program, which trains students to perform clinical lab tests, can take several professional pathways, including performing patient lab tests at hospitals and clinics, conducting research in academic and commercial laboratories and teaching at colleges and universities.<\/p>\n \u201cSome people don\u2019t even know we exist, or they think it\u2019s robots or something,\u201d \u00a0Dr. Geoff Baird said while speaking with the Seattle Times.<\/p>\n But as another school official put it while speaking with the students, “you are the glue, in many ways, of our entire health system.”<\/p>\n \u201cYou are the unsung heroes. You work behind the scenes that allow all of the health care machinery to work,” added Dr. Tim Dellit, CEO of UW Medicine and the dean of the School of Medicine, according to the newspaper.<\/p>\n Their jobs can be demanding, especially when students are also trying to hold down part-time jobs.<\/p>\n \u201cOur schedule is very demanding, especially when we start clinical rotations for 40 hours a week,” Jasmine Wertz explained in the university’s press release. “It’s very hard to find time between studying and doing rotations to be able to hold a job.\u201d<\/p>\n Wertz added that she wanted to thank the anonymous donor saying, \u201cJust thinking of the gift they\u2019ve given to so many people. Thank you for acknowledging our major and our career as a viable source of healthcare.\u201d<\/p>\n The money that was donated will also be put back into the program to \u201chelp expand enrollment to 100 students over the next ten years.\u201d<\/p>\n This is particularly important as the school noted that Washington state faces a shortage of \u201cmedical laboratory specialists as the demand for lab services has grown.\u201d<\/p>\n The university went on to note that only there are only two programs\u00a0in Washington\u00a0state\u00a0that offer “baccalaureate-level medical science degrees.”<\/p>\n Karen Ducey\/Getty<\/p>\n A sign outside the UW Medicine Research facilities in South Lake Union on December 10, 2020<\/p>\n \u201cThis donor\u2019s selfless generosity will allow us to reduce the debt burden for our students and attract more young people to the field to\u00a0ensure that our region has the skilled laboratory workforce that is so critical to high-quality, timely patient care,\u201d said Dellit.<\/p>\n![\"Smith](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1a5b8a4afad63d2377ea3337355cd63d.jpeg\"\/)
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