LeBron vows to pay college tuition for over 1,000 kids

National Basketball Association (NBA) superstar LeBron James is about to make life better for over a thousand kids by promising to pay college tuition for every single one of them. 

The famed Cleveland Cavaliers player made the announcement last Thursday (last Friday in Manila) on behalf of the LeBron James Family Foundation, which teamed up with the University of Akron and Chase Bank to make this possible. The scholarship giveaway will be a part of James’s “I Promise” program he started supporting five years ago in his hometown of Akron, Ohio.

“If you are one of LeBron’s kids… we want to tell you (that) you have a college scholarship waiting for you at the University of Akron when you graduate from high school,” University of Akron president Scott Scarborough said during the organization’s annual “family reunion.”

Covering 1,000 scholarships is quite the generous gesture, considering one year alone at the University of Akron costs about $9,500. That means, in order to sponsor 1,100 children for four years, James will have to spend $41.8 million.

That may seem like a lot of money, but the basketball star has no second thoughts about giving it to those who need it more than he does.

“As a kid growing up in the inner city and as an African-American kid, you don’t really think past high school because it’s not possible or your family can’t support you,” he told ESPN. “For us to be able to do something like this… it means so much.” PNA/Sputnik