Becker College planning for potential closure

Photo | Grant Welker Spruce Hall on Becker College's Worcester campus

Write a Comment

By Grant Welker

Becker College said Tuesday it is considering options for its future, including closing, amid financial uncertainty and other challenges, and after affiliation talks with another institution fell apart.

The Worcester school is unlikely to continue operations through the next academic year, the New England Commission of Higher Education, an accreditation agency, said in a joint statement with the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education on Tuesday. The college said it is halting recruiting activities.

Becker's enrollment before the coronavirus pandemic hit was 1,698 undergraduate and graduate students, and its endowment is $5.1 million. By enrollment, Becker is the 10th largest school in Central Massachusetts.

The college, which has campuses in downtown Worcester and Leicester near the town common, employs more than 200 faculty and nearly 300 people overall.

The Worcester school's board of trustees has been working with the college administration to evaluate the effect on Becker of a range of challenges, including increased costs, the coronavirus pandemic, and the beginning of a downward trend in high school-age students regionally, Board Chair Christine Cassidy said in a statement Tuesday.

"We have been undergoing a thoughtful process of evaluating the impact of these forces on our college and considering every option," Cassidy said. "We are aligned with the Department of Higher Education in our shared commitment to address the needs of students and families first, while always mindful of our duty to our campus community and our neighbors."

Becker's looming troubles come as colleges everywhere have been hurt by the pandemic, which has increased the cost of some operations and in some cases brought in less revenue for students that aren't staying in dormitories or even taking a year off. That adds to longer-term problems, including dropping enrollment for international students and an expected drop in high school-age students in the Northeast.

Higher education experts have warned of the likely closure of at least some small private colleges in particular. In 2018, Atlantic Union College in Lancaster closed, Mount Ida College in Newton became a satellite campus of UMass Amherst, and Wheelock College was taken over by Boston University. Pine Manor College in Brookline said last year it would become part of Boston College.

Becker President Nancy Crimmin said in a letter to the college community Tuesday potential affiliation talks with another institution fell apart in January.

"To those of you within our campus community, this should not be entirely new information," Crimmin said of the school's financial situation. "The situation has been dynamic."

The administration declined to comment beyond those statements.

The New England Commission of Higher Education and the Department of Higher Education said in their statement they're working regularly with Crimmin and Becker's board, including on contingency closure planning.

Becker, which has a secondary campus in Leicester, has spent the last few years taking a hard look at its operations and continuing any necessary changes to put it in a better financial position. The school's leadership said in 2019 it was working with a consultant to find ways that it could stay ahead of changes in higher education and wouldn't shy away from big-scale changes if needed.

“We’re not going to just sit by and let higher education change around us,” Crimmin said in a WBJ interview at the time.

The school's enrollment stood at 1,698 in the fall 2019 semester, nearly all undergraduate, according to the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics. The college has 50 full-time faculty and 162 part-time, according to the center. Its endowment, which can cushion colleges during tight financial times, stood at a small roughly $5 million as of 2018.

Despite some struggles, Becker has managed to find a niche for itself through video game design and esports. It created the country's first esports management program and was the first college in Massachusetts to offer scholarships to varsity esports student-athletes. It also formed a varsity team to play Overwatch, an online first-person shooter video game. Last year, its undergraduate video game design program was rated second in the country by The Princeton Review.

Becker calls itself one of the 25 oldest institutions in the United States, tracing its origins to the founding of Becker's Business College in 1887 and Leicester Academy in 1784, with a charter signed by John Hancock and Samuel Adams, according to the college's website. The institution first started calling itself Becker College in 1990 and received authority to grant bachelor's degrees in 1991.