CUNY’s Hunter College gets $52M donation to ramp up nursing program

Hunter College’s nursing school has netted a $52 million donation — the largest in the college’s history — at a time when an ongoing nursing shortage has been exacerbated by the COVID pandemic.

The Manhattan college will use the generous windfall — from billionaire Estée Lauder heir Leonard A. Lauder — to enhance its graduate-level program for nurse practitioners.

And the gift couldn’t have come at a more perfect time, according to Hunter’s President Jennifer Raab.

“We all know there’s not enough doctors and the care that they provide gets supplemented by nurse practitioners,” Raab told The Post.

“So training more nurse practitioners and working with [NYC] Health + Hospitals is truly a gift not just to Hunter, but also to the health of our great city,” she said.

Thanks to a “natural partnership,” according to Raab, more CUNY nurses are employed through NYC Health + Hospitals than any other health system in the Big Apple.

The historic donation comes from Lauder, chairman emeritus of the Estée Lauder companies, in honor of his late wife Evelyn Lauder.

As a Hunter College High School and Hunter College alumna, Evelyn lived by the college’s motto of “mihi cura futuri” — the care of the future is mine, Raab said.

“She always wanted to think about how to help people. And this gift not only helps nursing students in the nursing school, but it allows them to do more for more New Yorkers,” Raab said. “So it truly is the gift that keeps giving.”

The donation is not only the largest that Hunter has ever received but the largest philanthropic gift given to any single CUNY school.

Lauder’s donation will help pay for a new community care nurse practitioner program, named for Evelyn Lauder.

That program will provide $30,000 stipends to 25 students each year, which don’t have to be put toward tuition but could be used as a way for students to complete their training early if they are working full-time and going to school.

The donation will also allow for the creation of new state-of-the-art simulation labs, expand the curriculum and allow Hunter to hire additional faculty.