WORCESTER, Mass. - It’s been nearly a year since Becker College announced the school would be closing permanently at the end of the 2021 spring semester.
The closing, a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and a decline in admissions, came as a shock to students and staff members.
The school held its last graduation ceremony last May, ending a 200-year legacy.
The announcement came as a surprise to over 1,000 Becker College students, as they scrambled to enroll at new schools for the fall semester.
Former Becker student Michaela Leibowitz, now part of Assumption University’s nursing program, said she almost couldn’t believe the closure was happening.
“It was really surreal. I did not expect it at all,” Leibowitz said. “I honestly thought that I got a spam email that wasn’t real the first time we got the email.”
Juma Kombe, now a business administration major at Worcester State University, said the realization of having to part ways with friends and classmates at Becker was difficult.
“It was kind of like, farewell, goodbye. Everyone’s gonna go around and do their thing, whether it was on the West Coast or just down in Rhode Island,” Kombe said. “It was kind of sad.”
The New England Commission of Higher Education announced in early March of last year that Becker’s financial situation was unstable and its financial uncertainty was forcing the school to announce a permanent closure.
In the days following Becker’s announcement, several Worcester area colleges stepped up to offer academic pathways to students for a smooth transition to a new institution.
Clark University officially adopted Becker’s game design program, once known as the second best in the U.S., according to the Princeton Review. By the fall 2021 semester, nearly 200 former Becker students transferred to Clark, with most of them focused on game design. The school is currently running the program from Becker’s former facilities.
“Clark guaranteed that we would transfer all of their credits from Becker and give them a comparable financial aid package so that their net cost would be no more at Clark than it was at Becker,” Meredith Twombly, vice president of undergraduate admissions at the university, said in a statement. “We really recognized how disruptive and upsetting the closing of Becker had to have been for the students…”
Another major draw at Becker was its nursing program. Roughly half of the students that transferred from Becker to Worcester State and Assumption enrolled in nursing programs.
“Adding in additional students (to the program) I think is great for (the program) to have different perspectives, especially perspectives from other institutions. What those students liked at Becker, what they didn’t like at Becker, what things are different here. Any time students can hear different perspectives, it’s always a good incentive for them,” Caitlin Stover, dean of nursing at Assumption University, said.
Leibowitz said the transition process to Assumption has been a positive one.
“For a transition, it was as smooth as possible,” she said. “Obviously with new people and new places it’s very nerve-wracking, but the whole community really welcomed us.”
Kombe said the sports offerings at Worcester State, namely the soccer program, helped to make him feel welcome on a new campus.
“I felt like just knowing a couple people from right off the bat was very helpful, and it helped me transition everywhere,” Kombe said. “Whether I needed [answers] to know where my classes were, or the cafeteria, especially being a commuter, it felt like I got all the [answers] I needed just through them.”
Worcester State enrolled 140 transfer students from Becker and provided jobs for several former Becker staff members. WSU also founded a new women’s ice hockey team, which now has many members of Becker’s former team.
WSU is leasing facilities at the Becker campus to help with the influx of nursing students, and has also now become the new home of transcript records for Becker graduates.
“They’re integrated into the coursework, they’re engaging with their faculty advisers, they’re involved in campus activities. It is the college experience that they were hoping for, just on a different campus,” Ryan Forsythe, vice president for enrollment management at Worcester State, said.
Quinsigamond Community College also offered an academic pathway, bringing in 71 former Becker students. Worcester Polytechnic Institute, another pathway school, accepted 17 transfer students from Becker’s interactive media degree.
Both of Becker's former campuses are currently in the process of redevelopment. Many of the former Worcester facilities have been purchased for housing redevelopment, and the town of Leicester plans to use part of its campus to open a new high school.