College is expensive. For this reason, most nursing students are not only full-time students, but also full-time in the work force to pay hefty tuition costs, in addition to day-to-day bills. These hectic schedules can make it difficult to find time to dedicate to homework and studying, which can be devastating to a nursing student's grades. Nursing students are required to master fairly difficult and in-depth material, and without devoting the proper amount of time to the subject, a student is likely to fail.
Nursing students must learn to function in high-stress situations. The atmosphere in a nursing program is often stressful, made to reflect the environment an actual nurse must face every day on the job. This stress can come from complicated material, difficult patients and dealing with the fact that a person's life is being laid in the hands of the nurse. Not everyone can deal easily with situations as stressful as that, and for this reason, some nursing students fail.
For most people, math and science are not easy subjects to master. Some students spend a lot of time studying the subjects and never gain a complete understanding. Nursing is a field that depends heavily on math and science, mostly for measuring out correct medication doses and for understanding the effects of both diseases and their treatments. A student without a strong background in math and science is likely to struggle in a nursing program, and may eventually fail.