Steve Harvey pledges college scholarships to eight Kent State students
Comedian Steve Harvey has promised to pay the tuition of eight incoming freshmen at his alma mater in Ohio.
The “Family Feud” host will provide four years of college costs for the Kent State University students through The Steve & Marjorie Harvey Foundation, the university revealed in a release last week.
Students will have to maintain a grade point average of 2.5 in order to keep the scholarship, which will cover approximately $23,000 per student, according to The Associated Press.
Seven of the students who will receive the awards are from Ohio and one student is from Maryland, the release said. Five of the students were also participants in Kent State’s pre-college program.
The scholarships are in memory of Devin Moore, a Kent State student from Cleveland who died in 2017 while playing basketball at a university center.
Comedian Steve Harvey has promised to pay for 4 years of tuition for eight incoming freshmen at his alma mater, Kent State University, in Ohio, the university said last week. (Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP, File)
The university says Harvey’s foundation also committed $10,000 to Kent State's Men Empowerment Network in the university’s multicultural center.
Harvey, who previously starred in "The Steve Harvey Show," brought the students on his talk show “Steve,” which aired in Cleveland, Ohio, on Wednesday, the release said.
“Whenever we can, we find a way to change the lives of young people through scholarship programs we have come up with,” Mr. Harvey said after meeting at Kent State in April when he suggested providing scholarships to students, according to the release.
Harvey’s pledge comes at a time when student debt is burdening more and more Americans. According to Federal Reserve data, student loan debt has soared to $1.6 trillion this year -- and graduates are regretting their debt.
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A survey by PayScale found that about 27 percent of graduates said they regretted their student loans.
“No matter how we cut the data, student loans was the number one regret reported,” PayScale’s researchers said.
Younger people were more likely to regret their loans. Roughly 28.8 percent of millennials, 26.2 percent of Gen Xers said they regretted taking out student loans, compared to only 13.4 percent of baby boomers, according to the report.
FOX Business’ James Leggate and The Associated Press contributed to this report.