They donned caps and gowns and crossed the stage of the PNC Arts Center on May 23 as part of the Saint Peter’s College’s commencement ceremony. But most of the college’s nursing students apparently didn’t receive diplomas.

According to students, some 32 out of 40 students in the college’s four-year nursing program failed to pass a final assessment exam that is a supposed to gauge the test-taker’s ability to the pass the National Council of State Boards’ Licensure Examination (NCLEX), an exam nurses must pass to be licensed.

Some of the students argue the final assessment exam the Health Education Systems Inc. (HESI) is an arbitrary test that shouldn’t prevent them from graduating. They say the school did a poor job preparing them for the test and arbitrarily hiked the grade needed to pass the exam.

They also say they went into debt to spend four years or more at Saint Peter’s and now can’t get a job in their chosen profession or start paying back their loans.

“Until now, my father has no idea that I didn’t graduate,” John Payumo, 23, a fourth-year nursing student, told The Jersey Journal, adding that he’s accrued more than $20,000 in student loan debt.

He says he learned five days before the commencement ceremony that he wouldn’t receive a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing because his score on the HESI was eight points shy of the passing mark.

“I feel like a guinea pig, just so they (college officials) can improve their program,” said Payumo.

Nursing student Jennifer Evans, 23, who has a 3.2 percent grade point average, also failed the HESI. She believes the college set a higher passing grade for the HESI than was necessary.

“I never thought I’d end up in this situation, going through five years of college and ending up with nothing,” she said. “I’m not asking for handouts. I’m not asking for favors, just meet me halfway.”

Sarah Malinowski, the spokeswoman for Saint Peter’s College, said the college is well aware of student complaints. She declined to say how many nursing students failed the HESI, but says all were given adequate support to pass the test.

The complaints “disregard the fact that substantial aid was provided to the students at no additional cost to them to assist them . . . in achieving their goal of successfully graduating from the program,” she stated in an email.

At this point, students say that in order to retake the HESI and obtain their degrees, the college has told them they have to pay $300 to retake the medical-surgery course in the upcoming semester a class they’ve already taken and passed.

Malinowski declined to comment on this information.

The students have filed a complaint with the New Jersey Board of Nursing.

“While state law does not currently prohibit schools from requiring students to pass an exit exam before graduating and taking the NCLEX, the board’s education committee is currently gathering information about these concerns,” a spokesman for the board told The Jersey Journal.

“The full board expects to review this information and make a decision that may affect new policy at an upcoming meeting,” he said.