It's not clever, it's pointless red tape. I don't know if it's different in Germany but at least at US universities most higher level courses are part of a sequence and are thus only offered at a specific time of year. Thus failing delays your degree by a year and creates all sorts of logistical issues for the student.
Doing that more than 3 times would be absurd, and anyway the sort of student who has 3 F's on his transcript within his chosen major is unlikely to be maintaining a GPA above the minimum for his program (or any program for that matter). Rather than transferring to another degree such a student is likely to be forced out of the university entirely in short order.
> but at least at US universities most higher level courses are part of a sequence and are thus only offered at a specific time of year. Thus failing delays your degree by a year and creates all sorts of logistical issues for the student.
This often also holds in Germany. And indeed if you thus fail an exam, your degree is delayed and you might have logistical issues.
The moral of this: learn hard so that you don't fail exams. :-)
Doing that more than 3 times would be absurd, and anyway the sort of student who has 3 F's on his transcript within his chosen major is unlikely to be maintaining a GPA above the minimum for his program (or any program for that matter). Rather than transferring to another degree such a student is likely to be forced out of the university entirely in short order.