Kent State University announced on Wednesday that it will be building on its partnership with the LeBron James Family Foundation by guaranteeing free tuition and room and board to the charitable organization’s oldest I PROMISE Network class.
“We are so pleased to take our partnership with the LeBron James Family Foundation to this next level and welcome these students fully into the Kent State family,” Todd Diacon, the president of the school, which is based in Kent, Ohio, said in a statement. “Kent State looks forward to the time when our campus is teeming with I PROMISE students.”
“We have already seen the impressive results that the I PROMISE Network is having on its participating students,” the school’s interim senior vice president and provost, Melody Tankersley, added in the announcement on Wednesday.
“We are so pleased that Kent State will become the next step in the educational journey of these amazing young people, and so happy that we can start them on their way to exciting careers and lives full of inspiration,” she added.
The LeBron James Family Foundation, which James launched 2004, founded the I PROMISE program in 2011. The program works to provide resources, incentives and academic support to students and their families in Akron, Ohio, where James was born and raised. James also launched an institute and school under the same name in subsequent years.
According to Kent State University, the oldest class of the I PROMISE Network consists of junior high school students. The school said those students will be eligible for four free years of tuition and one year of free room and board after graduating next year.
“To be eligible for the free tuition, I PROMISE students must be successfully admitted to Kent State, fill out required financial aid forms and complete a requisite number of community service hours each semester,” the school said in the Wednesday announcement.
As part of the package, the school said I PROMISE students will also be required to maintain good grades and complete a certain number of credit hours yearly as well as community service hours.