This week’s Joy Beat celebrates higher education and perseverance despite life’s challenges.
Sheryl Royster, 76, is a 2026 graduate of Bridgewater State University’s Class of 2026. She joined GBH’s All Things Considered host Arun Rath to talk about her decision to return to college as a great-grandmother and what it means to finally finish. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of their conversation.
Arun Rath: Tell us how it feels to officially be a college graduate.
Sheryl Royster: Woosaaaaah! Woosaaaah! Finally, finally! And it almost didn’t happen again and I started to get anxious.
Last year I was in an accident and I had a concussion on my way home from Bridgewater State after spending four hours in the library and I had class the next day, but of course [my] brain is all wibble wobbled because I was hit twice. And I said, “I don’t think I can do this, I don’t think I can do this, [then] I just can’t drop out of this class!” So, I emailed a professor and said, “I’ll be in bed, I’ll be listening. I don’t know if I’ll comprehending.” So, I said to myself, “You’re almost there. Don’t you feel it?” Anxiety, joy, completion. Again, joy.
Rath: Does that additional bit of drama — I’m sorry you had to go through that, but does that make it a little bit sweeter even?
Royster: Yes, it does because I’ve gone through so much drama trying to get to the end. From a mother dying of cancer and dropping out less than six months before I’m supposed to finish at URI, [to] having a bad relationship in my marriage and saying “Oh no, I’ve got to go. I can’t stay.” So I don’t have the income anymore and now a car accident, not hit me once but twice, and I’m really not even sure what my name is when they ask me in the emergency room and I’m having an asthma attack. I said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding. I’ve got to get on Zoom tomorrow.’”
Rath: My first question was going to be, did you always want to go to college, and it was something where life got in the way? Or it came to you later and it sounds like life got in the away. Tell us about your original desire to go to college.
Royster: My original desire was not after high school. I didn’t think I needed to further my education. When I was in high school, they used to ask me, “What do you want to be when you grow up or get older?” I used to say, “gone.” And they would say “Gone?” Yes, out of Brockton. I felt that I was really limited. I just wanted to be out of Massachusetts or a different city in New England because I just didn’t see any potential here for a Black female.
Rath: Wow. When did you get a desire?
Royster: I attended Howard. I was invited somewhere between 37 and 40 years old [by] a friend of mine. He was from Washington D.C. and he was nice enough to invite myself and a very close friend of mine to Howard to see the school. And I got lost. I heard a professor of color, which I had never met before, or seen, lecturing on theater. And I sat there — and he didn’t ask me why I was there, and I didn’t tell him — and when the class was over, I said, “Gee, maybe I’ll go to school, but I have to get out of Massachusetts because schools in Massachusetts don’t teach like this.”
So that started the fire burning. The Bunsen burner was lit, and then I found out there was a school in Rhode Island known as the University of Rhode Island. I applied to Massasoit [Community College], had to take an English, an algebra, and a chemistry course to get in to URI, but that’s where it stopped for a moment.
I went to URI for about a year and a half, two years. And I was supposed to graduate in 1992. But while I was at URI, I took subjects at UMass Boston, UMass Dartmouth, all to bring into URI because that’s quite a trip for five days a week with two children, a husband and a sickly father to take care of. But, in 1992, my mother told me that she had lung cancer and she was getting sick from the chemo. My brother and sister just weren’t capable or just couldn’t deal with it, so I dropped out.
Rath: And I’m going to ask you to just skip over quite a bit of history to get us to Bridgewater State University and keeping that African studies minor, right?
Royster: Yes, I received a Bachelor of Science in Sociology and a minor in African-American studies. They don’t have a major at Bridgewater. So, when I registered for courses or classes or to get the degree, I said, “OK, maybe I should go to UMass Boston.” Now, this little story you really need to hear.
I was told that I needed to pay fees. I had some extra money, planned on taking a trip with it. They said that you have to pay $500-some odd dollars for fees, so I wrote the check out because I had that extra money. I went upstairs to the president’s office and a lady named Deanna was there, I was told to ask for her. And I told her what I was doing, and what was going on and that I just paid for my fees so I’m all set. She turned and looked at her secretary and she told her secretary, “Tell them to give her her money back.” So, the same day I registered, I paid that $600 for that trip [since] I got it back. When I walked out of that office, I said, “I don’t know what is going on, I don’t know why I’m here, but I’m here because my God wants me to be here. There is a reason for me being here other than to get a degree.” You just don’t have things happen like that without a reason.
Rath: What do you think that that reason is? Or what would you like your own kids and your own grandchildren to take away from what you’ve done.
Royster: That you never give up, which they already knew that from me. They know never to give up. And if you want something bad enough, you will achieve it. Sometimes you have to take a break, sometimes things get in the way, but if it’s meant to be, if you watch for the door, it’s gonna open and you’re gonna go through. Just be ready for that door to be open. Be prepared and ready and don’t question it.
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