It's not necessarily maliciousness or laziness, it could simply be enthusiasm paired with lack of experience.
Memory leaks and issues with the memory allocator are months long process to pin on the JVM...
In the early days (bug parade times), the bugs are a lot more common, nowadays -- I'd say it'd be an extreme naivete to consider JVM the culprit from the get-go.
I can't imagine the level of laziness or entitlement required for a student (or any developer) to blame their tools so quickly without conducting a thorough investigation.