He attended the Far Hills Country Day School with his longtime friend and future Governor of New Jersey Christine Todd Whitman.

in history from Princeton University in 1970 after completing a 75-page long senior thesis titled "Contest for the 1892 Democratic Presidential Nomination.

[11] In 1985, President Ronald Reagan appointed Forbes as head of the Board of International Broadcasting (BIB), which historically managed the operation of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

[13] From 1996 to 1999, Forbes also served as honorary chairman of the advocacy group "Americans for Hope, Growth and Opportunity", described as "a grassroots, issues-advocacy organization founded to advance pro-growth, pro-freedom and pro-family issues.

Forbes believed the American taxation system had become too Byzantine and bureaucratic and was in desperate need of reform and simplification.

[20] Time Magazine called his stumping a "comedy-club impression of what would happen if some mad scientist decided to construct a dork robot.

Forbes opposes gun control and most government regulation of the environment, as well as drug legalization and same-sex marriage,[26] in spite of his father being gay.

[3] In response to this criticism, Forbes promised in his 2000 campaign to exempt himself from the benefits of the flat tax, although he did support the repeal of the 16th Amendment in a debate with Alan Keyes the previous year.

Despite holding opposite positions in 1996, for the 2000 campaign Forbes announced he was adamantly opposed to abortion and supported prayer in public schools.

[28] Actor Mark McKinney played Steve Forbes on the comedy television show Saturday Night Live, a program known for featuring political satire.

The episode featured a skit in which Forbes earnestly wishes to answer the questions of potential voters, but all the questions he receives instead have to do with his enormous personal wealth (for example, with regards to the then ongoing war in Bosnia, Forbes is asked by an audience member, "Why don't you just buy Bosnia and tell all those people over there that if they don't stop fighting you'll just, you know, throw them the hell out?").

Forbes is also a member of the board of trustees of The Heritage Foundation, an influential Washington, D.C.–based public policy research institute.

On March 28, 2007, Forbes joined Rudy Giuliani's campaign for the 2008 presidential election, serving as a National Co-Chair and Senior Policy Advisor.

[34] In March 2013, Forbes participated in an NPR broadcast Intelligence Squared debate with James Grant, Frederic Mishkin and John R. Taylor Jr. concerning the motion "Does America Need A Strong Dollar Policy?".