After her sophomore year at the University of New Haven, psychology major Alexis Cirillo dropped out. Cirillo thought about how her money was being used and where it was going after her teacher said in class that the department could not afford paper.

“I chose not to return to UNH because of the quality of education,” said Cirillo. “I paid around $32,000 a year, and my own department couldn’t afford paper?”

The University of New Haven actually scores better for retention rate than other schools. According to collegefactual.com, 80 percent of students currently enrolled in the University of New Haven will return.  Nationwide, only 72 percent of students returned and are currently enrolled.

“There were 1,415 bachelor’s degree candidates at the University of New Haven in 2013. By 2015, six years after beginning their degree, 51.5 percent of these students had graduated,” according to collegefactual.com.

Cirillo said, “Whenever I questioned the graduation rate or my probability of finding a job after college, a lot of things made sense. Less than 5 percent of psychology majors get a job in their field. UNH has a heavy emphasis on criminal justice, which is fine, but you can’t put other majors who pay just as much on the back burner.”  

There was no more recent data. As data from 2008 shows, it seems that there is a greater graduation rate from students who graduated after 8 years.

“The Office of Institutional Research (OIR) does not have sufficient staffing resources to respond to all data requests from students, reporters and external agencies. However, answers to most inquiries can be found through the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), to which OIR annually reports data on key metrics about the university, including enrollment, financial aid, graduation rates, degree completion, institutional finances, faculty, and staff.” said Jeffrey E. Luoma, assistant director of institutional research.