Laid-off Drexel medical faculty, staff to keep tuition benefit after Hahnemann closure

Faculty and staff being laid off by Drexel University Physicians as a result of the closure of Hahnemann University Hospital will continue to get free tuition for the rest of the academic year, the dean of the Drexel College of Medicine said Friday.

Hahnemann was Drexel’s primary teaching hospital. Not long after Hahnemann’s owner announced in late June that the hospital would be closing, Drexel’s president, John Fry,  said roughly 320 faculty and staff from its physicians’ practices would be laid off.

Some of them expressed concern that because they would no longer be Drexel employees, they would not be eligible for the tuition remission they were relying on for themselves or their children.

In a letter Friday, the College of Medicine’s new dean, Charles Cairn, wrote that those who have already applied for tuition remission can collect it for themselves and their dependents through “the full 2019-2020 academic year.”

The medical school is shifting its graduate training programs to Tower Health, at hospitals based in Reading, Chestnut Hill and Philadelphia’s suburbs. Employees transferring to Tower also will receive the tuition discount for the 2019-2020 academic year.

A university spokeswoman said 56 employees in all would be able to keep the tuition benefit.