But for anyone studying at a private university on scholarship, those words don’t really reach you. There is no “next semester” to fix things. You either maintain the grade, or you lose the scholarship.

We’re so busy judging students from private universities for their privileges, we rarely talk about what these students studying on scholarship have to go through on a daily basis. Many of these students have already gone through the intense trauma of the public university admission tests. They have already faced their worst: failing to get into the dream institution, watching their parents’ disappointed faces, hearing what society had to say.

These “failed” candidates were treated as lost causes by society until private university scholarships entered the picture. If we could strip away our fragile egos and the toxic “chance peye dekha” mentality for a moment, most of us would admit that private universities do offer excellent education and learning opportunities.

For these students, a scholarship lifts a crushing weight off their families and gives them the permission to breathe without guilt. And while the condescending comments about private universities persist, telling critics that you are studying on a merit scholarship and not on your parents’ money somehow gives you a ground to stand on. But then, reality hits again.

These scholarships are not a lifetime reward. In a way, you need to keep earning these by maintaining a high CGPA, which at first glance may seem easy, but when you look deeper into the grading scale, you see the torture behind it. Take North South University, for example, with its notoriously tough grading scale.

A GPA of 4.0 requires 93% or higher. A score between 90-92 drops you to a 3.7; 87-89 drops you to a 3.3, and 80-82 leaves you at a 3.0. To retain a full scholarship, a student must consistently maintain a minimum GPA of 3.25, meaning their average score must stay safely above an 82% across every single course, every single term. A huge number of these students don’t know how they are going to continue their education if they lose their scholarship, living with the constant anxiety of hitting those marks in every semester, every course, every day, month, year until graduation.

One 100% scholarship holder from North South University shared one such experience: “Let me give an example to take you through the situation first: In one of my recent exams, worth 50 marks, there was a single multi-part question worth 14 marks. Part (a) was worth 3 marks, and its answer was required to solve parts (b) and (c), worth 11 marks collectively. I made a small error in part (a), which cascaded through the rest of the question. Suddenly, I was facing a potential loss of 14 marks and with it, my scholarship. So, I hope you get how easy it is to lose the scholarship and how hard it is to maintain it. During my first semester, I realised this is my reality for the next four years: every exam will be an effort to avoid a sudden 80,000 BDT bill every three months for my parents.”

This constant, high-stakes environment absolutely changes the way a student approaches their education. Nahiyan Bin Shahariar, who holds a 75% scholarship at NSU, explains how this fear of losing ground alters his entire mindset:

“I think I work much harder because of the scholarship than I would have otherwise. Knowing that one wrong decision, one poor performance, or one careless mistake could mean losing my scholarship makes me take every quiz, assignment, and exam much more seriously. There is a constant pressure to stay consistent because I know how much this opportunity means to me.”

But that’s just the anxiety of maintaining and losing the scholarship. The damage goes much further than we usually see. Ideally, a university should be a safe space to make mistakes, learn, and grow. But with the scholarship, every error carries severe consequences. While peers treat quizzes as learning opportunities, scholarship holders prepare like their survival depends on it, because financially, it does.

This creates a weird sense of isolation. You realise you don’t belong to the group that can laugh off a bad test, yet you can’t express your panic in public either. Freaking out over a 3.2 GPA, a score many would celebrate, only makes you look out of touch to your peers. You end up trapped in the middle: neither part of the effortlessly brilliant crowd nor the relaxed, “will retake” one.

Even for students who view the pressure constructively, there is practically no room for error. Smita, an NSU student holding a 50% scholarship, notes that while maintaining her current waiver requires a 3.00 GPA, the drive to earn a higher waiver forces her to treat every assessment as make-or-break:

“The scholarship I received is a huge privilege, but it determines how much my family needs to pay. To keep my 50% waiver I have to maintain a 3.00 CGPA, but as I wish to get an enhancement in the future, I have to complete more credits with a near 4.00 CGPA. That definitely makes me take every single assessment quite seriously with no room for mistakes.”

The pressure also affects academic exploration. While other students freely choose elective courses based on curiosity, like public speaking or political science, scholarship holders are forced to take the safest routes possible. They have to sacrifice genuine learning to protect their grades.

Tashfia Mahbub, who received a 100% scholarship in the NSU admission test of Summer 2026, candidly admits how this dynamic dictates her choices:

“Every single decision that I’ve made regarding courses has been to complement my major and scholarship. Seniors are the only source of information about faculties, and I have to browse through numerous reviews just to find who is safe. When it comes to hard-going faculties, the best way to deal with them is simply not taking their class.”

Another 100% scholarship recipient noted: “When picking a maths professor, I had to choose one known for lenient grading and grade curves, even though he didn’t teach well. I had to pass up great professors who actually teach deeply because they grade strictly. My education right now isn’t about getting the best knowledge; it’s about taking the safest path to survive. I end up spending hours now teaching myself at home just to compensate for that.”

Finally, university life is meant to be enriched by vibrant extracurriculars, campus events, social connections and networking opportunities. Private universities often excel in these areas.

While a scholarship doesn’t explicitly bar students from these activities, it steals the one resource required to enjoy them: time. Caught between the desperate need to maintain grades and the sheer hours spent self-studying, scholarship holders are often left with little time to actually live the university experience. As Tashfia ironically puts it, the only upside to her intense academic schedule is that “academic exhaustion has helped me sleep better.”