Not really.

It depends on the school. Things balance out accordingly in the end. For example, in Belgrade you have FON (named org sciences), which is notoriously hard to get into, and super easy to graduate once you are in, compared to other, bigger schools that share a lot of subjects you would study there but are considered more specialized and rigorous such as EKOF (econ faculty) and ETF (electrical engineering), where, like, half of people drop out after 2 years.

I believe criteria and rigor is diminishing every year, because they are facing lower admissions due to demographic factors and new trends in education, job market needs, shortening attention spans etc. Best or more prilviledged students are increasingly going to quality private schools (such as RAF) and exclusive programmes in english done in collab with foreign Unis, because they are better quality and give them a better networking potential. Just having a degree is useless now, compared to before. It is expected from you to make meaningful connections and find people that you can have mutually benefitting relationshilps with, for life, and not only careerwise. It is expected of you to be in leadership positions and run or be apart of things outside of your regular coursework. Just studying, passing by, and getting a degree gets you nowhere now.

There are also societal aspects here where people in general believe you should spend a lot of your best years having fun, doing nothing, taking more time for leisure. There is not that much pressure put on young people, especially the priviledged ones that would study in Belgrade. So, their parents support them to take a few months off, commit to less subjects per year, extend the pursuit of a 4 year degree to 5 or 6 years. Some even want to have higher GPA and they retake the classes to have better grades and extend their time spent in school. Some take MSc or something else postgrad because they can't find a job with a bachelors degree, and extend a 1 or 2yr degree to 3-5yrs. Some work and study, some chicks got pregnant, life happens etc, you get the idea. It is not like in the USA or western world where there is some expectation to graduate in a specific timeframe, it is more of a thing that you are expected to finish, and taking extra year or two is generally considered fine and not looked down upon if other things are fine.

Also, looking back, coming from less developed part of Serbia, things were hard for me in the begining I believe due to being not academically mature for Uni, my highschool was bullshit, and I was extremely brainrotted coming into Uni, so it was hard to make connections and grasp concepts quickly. Towards the end school became easy for me. So, also, expect that public high school education in Serbia is shitty on avarage, people leave high school dense and dumb as fuck, so reality hits them hard at Uni.