Vincent Huang and Jovy Cheng recently gave a seven-figure gift to the Biola Fund — providing critical support to students during a particularly challenging year. The gift was one of many sizable donations made during the 2020-21 school year, helping to provide scholarships for students and pay for unplanned one-time expenses that arose in response to Covid-19. As business owners in the mobile technology industry and parents of young children, Huang and Cheng became familiar with Biola in 2008 when Huang began Biola’s BOLD program. We asked him to tell us more about why this was the time to support Biola in such a significant way.

What sets a Biola education apart?
I realized Biola wasn’t just about Talbot [School of Theology] and these things that relate directly to the Bible, but Biola wanted to be the best in science and wanted to have a great program in other realms so that these students can be properly equipped and go out and have that clarity of a biblical worldview. That’s when Jovy and I got really excited, and that’s when we found ourselves engaging at a different level.

I’m not only passionate about supporting Biola but also I tell every friend that has kids going to college how important it is to think through this decision. I think most parents make the wrong assumption. For example, one brother was saying to me, ‘Well, I went to UCLA, so my kids will go to UCLA. It’s perfectly good for them.’ What they don’t realize is UCLA 20 or 30 years ago and UCLA today is very different. The world was very different. … We make it a point to tell them what a difference going to Biola makes versus just going to [secular schools]. What is more important than knowledge is this understanding of what God would want us to do with that knowledge. We can send people into different lines of work with their strong understanding of their faith, so that that way they can not only bring glory to God but they can also help defend our faith and explain that to others. And that is well worth us supporting and advocating.

Why did you choose to financially support Biola this year?
Because I have kids in Christian [elementary] school, I saw how [finances] impacted a lot of parents’ decisions — either wanting to ask for discounts or in some cases just not sending their kids to the private school. I know that has an impact on the school’s revenue model. As a business person I understand that, and then I realized for those of us that have means, it’s our opportunity to step in and bridge the gap, especially when we have leaders who are very actively thinking how to do it responsibly. So we wanted to help, and we’re glad that God had provided in a way that our business didn’t see a significant revenue drop. We were happy then to help out Biola as a whole. Jovy and I wanted to go beyond our typical giving threshold. So when we prayed, that is when the Lord led me to Biola. It wasn’t until after we made the decision, then President Corey told me more about how difficult the situation was and that [Biola was] faced with more cutback decisions. So we were glad that the Holy Spirit impressed on us, and then that we had the opportunity to be used.

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