He seemed like a reasonably intelligent person certainly he could have done whatever was necessary to get through the required coursework. Yeah he would actually have to study...but so did I.
Now would he have been a good engineer etc. That’s open to debate. Everyone performs to their gifts/abilities but this kid was not with an IQ below 100.
Not everyone is college material necessarily, but with some of the schlock degrees they issue these days you could give a degree to a potted plant.
If I were to punctuate the sentence by adding a comma you wrote thusly: “Now would he have been a good engineer etc. That’s open to debate. Everyone performs to their gifts/abilities but this kid was not, with an IQ below 100,” it seems that you are stating that he has an IQ below 100. Do you really think that a person with a sub-par IQ would be capable of handling the math and reasoning skills to graduate with an engineering degree from any college? My guess is a resounding: No, no way.
Without the innate ability to handle advanced mathematics there is not a chance a person such as your friend could handle the coursework. Do you really think that some deficit like that could be overcome by studying? This is a favorite theme on mine. I cannot believe that effort can overcome talent. Otherwise, we could all become famous physicists, singers, song composers, if ONLY we just worked hard enough.