So, a lot of programs judge you on your GPA if you want to go to grad school or med school... My college is known to have surprisingly few pre-meds and no happy ones, not because so few people get A's here, but because the people who fail out of my school could graduate with straight A's in two or three years from a state uni. This realization generally makes us question what the hell we're doing here ^.^ So, there are classes with a lot of A's, but all only give it with a lot of work... We are unable to graduate in four years unless we take classes that give us an official expectation of 40 hours of work per week, at least, which means most people take 45 minimum, which is 5 classes. I dunno. Everyone here got near straight A's in high school. We all aced everything. There are classes where the grading scheme is that the bottom five fail (or rather, the bottom five fail unless they get a certain percent, which has never happened before). Going from easily the top of our high school classes to, for half of us, below average, is rough. A lot of the people I know here have failed classes. It's easier for me to think of people who have failed things than those who haven't. (And the ones who haven't dropped a class they would have at some point, generally). So...
Then again, I go to a science school. If I went to a humanities one, maybe my impression of college grades would be very different. But here at least, they are pretty generous with F's.