Talk Show Host Steve Harvey To Cover Cost of College for Eight Students in Ohio

The cost of college and student debt has played a large role in the discourse in the 2020 primary race for president, but some students in Ohio will be less worried about post-degree student loan headaches after a generous donation from talk show host Steve Harvey.

Harvey, a popular television personality who hosts nationally syndicated Family Feud in addition to Celebrity Family Feud on ABC, announced last week plans to award students at Kent State University – his alma mater – scholarships to help pay for their education, WKYC reported.

Kent State University said in a statement that The Steve & Majorie Harvey Foundation worked with the university to provide scholarships of around $23,000 each to eight incoming students at the university. The scholarships are renewable so long as students maintain a 2.5 grade-point average each semester.

The scholarships are in honor of Devin Moore, a Kent State University student who died in 2017 while playing recreational basketball at the university.

Moore, a Cleveland native, was a senior and studying broadcast journalism at the time of his unexpected death. An autopsy conducted showed an undiagnosed heart condition known as aortic stenosis led to Moore’s death, WKYC reported.

All eight of the scholarship recipients were flown out to Los Angeles to be featured on Harvey’s nationally syndicated talk show Steve, according to WKYC. Harvey’s talk show is in its final season as it was canceled by NBC in May after seven seasons with the network, according to People.

Steve Harvey, a former Kent State student himself, just changed the lives of eight incoming freshmen. Be sure to tune into his talk show "Steve" at 9 a.m. tomorrow on WUAB (local) to see how. https://t.co/G5X2OCuMmJ pic.twitter.com/QvSmPVI70f

— Kent State (@KentState) June 25, 2019

Harvey’s talk show, which first began in 2012 and was relaunched under a different name in 2017, aired its final episode last Wednesday, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Harvey took to Instagram to share his thoughts on the show’s run, and what was coming next.

“Your life ain’t nothing but a book,” he said. “I happen to be 62 years old. I am in the middle of my 62nd chapter of the book that I’m writing. There are some good books in there, too, there are some good chapters and some bad chapters… But in this 62nd chapter, I got my finger on the corner of the page. All I’m doing is I’m about to turn it. I can’t wait to see what God’s got for me on that other page.”

In addition to the eight scholarships, Harvey’s foundation has also said it would donate $10,000 for the Kent State Male Empowerment Network (M.E.N.) within the Student Multicultural Center at the Ohio University, according to WKYC.