Work ethic is more important than “smarts”, in everything.
I had a mediocre GPA, but strangely enough, after my first job, nobody said “oh, you went to an Ivy League school - and what was your GPA there?”…
Conversely, a high GPA at Podunk U. won’t get you someone to ask for that GPA later in your career, they will look at Podunk U. and say hmm, never heard of it… Not, OOO, they got a 4.0 GPA at a school we’ve never heard of!