Bethel University’s Information Technology Services made the decision in April to permanently shut down the Bethel Google accounts of anyone who had graduated more than a year prior to the decision. Alums were given two months to transfer their information off of their Bethel account, and the accounts were ultimately shut down in June.

In June 2021, Google announced that they would limit individual account storage usage across all Google platforms – including Google Photos and Drive – to 15 GB per account. Additional account storage through “Google One,” Google’s subscription plan that upgrades users from 15 GB to 100 GB of storage to use across their Google programs, costs a minimum of $2 a month.

Previously, Google offered unlimited free storage to higher education, but introduced a new storage policy due to “storage not being consumed equitably across institutions,” as said in a statement from Google in February 2021. Bethel faculty, staff and students were asked to reduce their Google workspace storage usage to 15 GB or less.

If Bethel chose to maintain the current storage usage, it would cost $3 per account.

Alums with over 100 GB of files in their Bethel Google accounts were warned to reduce the content in their accounts as soon as possible, or their accounts would be deleted earlier than the initial deadline.

According to Chief Information Officer of ITS Michael Spande, ending alums’ access to Google accounts was not a decision that was taken lightly and had more to do with security than cost.

“The decisions were made related to overall security concerns and government regulations,” Spande said. “Like most universities, Bethel has outside security partners that help advise us on the best practices that keep our IT environment as safe as possible. Bethel IT security is continuously evolving to adjust to changing threats.”

ITS sent an email to all alums concerning their emails and Google accounts in April, communicating their new policy and what that meant for the alums. For some, the transition was smoother than others.

Hannah Smason, class of ‘22, thought that alums were going to have their accounts for life and had gladly connected her email account to academic-related services that were “more of a school thing” for various accounts.

Smason’s Google Drive was filled with four years’ worth of English papers and research pieces that she was planning on holding onto for potential future employers. When she found out about the account shutdowns, she initiated the transfer process that Bethel had provided, which took an estimated two days.

A week before the alums’ accounts were shut down, Smason attempted to complete this two-day transfer with partial success but some files showed up as “null” and did not transfer over to her personal Google account.

“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m going to lose some stuff and I don’t know what I’m going to lose because I have so many files on my Google account,’” Smason said.

Hitting walls with maxed out storage on her personal account and wrestling with WiFi issues, Smason was able to receive a weeklong extension to transfer files from her Bethel account and found success. 

“It was a really big pain for something that I didn’t think I was going to have to do in the first place, because I would not have been putting so many important files on that account,” Smason said.

Bryson Rosell, class of ‘22, discovered that he no longer had access to his Bethel Google account when attempting to retrieve files for a documentary that he had been working on post-graduation, in the fall of 2022. He had not been keeping up with his Bethel emails and missed the notice that he would be losing access to his account.

Rosell’s account exceeded 100 GB of content, filled with four years of graphic design content. Although he lost out on treasured content from his work in undergrad, losing his files was not what bothered Rosell the most about the shutdown.

“The hardest part is that it’s easy for Bethel to just be like, ‘Oh, it’s just your storage that you can take care of and move somewhere else,’” Rosell said. “It’s just frustrating that it happened after I was promised that it would be there forever, and I was treating it as my safe box.”

As a junior and senior at Bethel, Rosell had networked with potential employers using his Bethel email. 

While working as a resident assistant in Bodien Hall his junior year, Rosell found out from former Resident Director Adam Dvorak that he would have the account for life post-graduation. Taking the opportunity to use the account as a “permanent storage box,” all of the files he didn’t have storage for on his personal computer or hard drives as well as his job search efforts were linked to his Bethel email.

“I worry sometimes that I’ve lost access to certain employers that I might have had access to earlier,” Rosell said. “It makes sense to me, I’m not pissed about it – I’m just worried about what I’m missing out on by not having that email.”

Zeke Chapin, class of ‘22, replied to the account shutdown announcement email right away, asking if there was any way his account “wouldn’t get axed.” With a variety of website logins such as Amazon.com connected to his Bethel account, Chapin thought it was worth a try.

Chapin was also given the opportunity to have a weeklong extension on his account shutdown, but decided to not take action after transferring his files to personal accounts on his own. Most of Chapin’s ongoing usage of the Bethel email address were account logins. He has no way of knowing which websites were linked to the Bethel email that he has yet to log in to.

“I’m sure there’s stuff that I haven’t interacted with yet that I will want to interact with in the coming months or coming years, and won’t be able to go back and check my email,” Chapin said. 

Although Chapin himself isn’t overly affected by the account shutdown, he knows many people who are angry or frustrated with the situation. Many of his alum friends shared their grievances against Bethel and felt that this situation was the final strike against Bethel.

“This probably happens with every school, where after you graduate you just feel a slight animosity towards your school just because you now owe that school a lot of money,” Chapin said. “Whatever personal relationship you had with that school, you’re not getting the personal benefits of that relationship, and only getting the drawbacks.”

Chapin used his own method to transfer files to a personal account and did not run into any issues. He was already employed full-time during the shutdown, so he did not need his accounts for any potential employer contacts. 

Smason, Rosell and Chapin each felt the account shutdowns left them one degree of separation further from their alma mater.

“What did my money go towards, if not my Google account that they have to pay a few dollars a month to keep going?” Smason said.

Moving forward, all Bethel students will retain access to their accounts for one year from the final day of their last semester, allowing time to transfer information from their Bethel accounts to other emails. 

“While there has been some disappointment, the overall response has been that of graciousness and understanding,” Spande said. “Google has easy-to-follow built-in tools that allow for easy migration to non-Bethel Google accounts.”

Bethel ITS did not respond to further questions regarding the account shutdowns.