Yes, indeed! Faculty members are "scared" of guiding students who have a reputation of being irregular or mostly absent in classes and labs.
A typical faculty member spends 4-8 hours a week preparing to give the lectures/tutorials/assignments for courses that she/he teaches. Do students spend the same amount of time on the material taught? Outside the class?!
If the returns on this work is a straggling class of 50% or smaller, why should that faculty member then take time off from their summer or regular research work and conference time to guide an absentee student in a summer or final-year project? Very likely that student will remain absent during most of the project and produce some half-baked report on the penultimate day saying "Please sign it or I won't get my scholarship/degree!"