Redrawing of French student support would be ‘huge change’

France should unite its patchwork of aid into a “student life and learning allowance” that would give learners more choice and create new roles for their university, according to a government report. 

Civil servants slipped the radical proposal into an annexe, provoking mixed reactions from a sector struggling to sustain a generation driven to desperation by soaring living costs. 

Staff at the General Inspectorate of Education, Sport and Research, a watchdog, were tasked with looking at the “evolution” of the support agencies which provide housing grants, dormitories, cafeterias and recreation to students nationwide.

They suggested a single, means-tested allowance based on local accommodation and living costs and topped up if the student must travel long distances or faces other disadvantages, to take the place of the current university-specific grant, which is calculated based on parental income and is linked to child tax credits. 

It could be open to learners aged between 18 and 28, and cushion wandering between public or private higher education, apprenticeships, volunteering abroad and time away from study. The allowance would “radically change catering and accommodation activities, positioning students as customers who can make demands, whereas today they are seen more as users”, the authors write. 

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The change would add more demand for already scarce subsidised accommodation, they note, but universities could set up private companies that can take out loans, allowing them to meet it, while the restaurants that serve €1 (86p) meals would have to extend their opening hours. 

“It would be a huge change, if it happens. And I don’t know if that’s something French universities are ready for, or would even care to take on,” Ariane de Gayardon, assistant professor of higher education policy at the University of Twente, told Times Higher Education.

Emmanuelle Garnier, president of the University of Toulouse-Jean Jaurès, cautiously welcomed the ideas, particularly if they helped ambitious dropouts poorly served by traditional routes. “We have a duty to better adapt to this plasticity of students’ pathways,” she said. 

Professor Garnier said France had a particular challenge accommodating its growing influx of international students, who bring diversity and revenue but may face delays and dizziness at the benefits buffet. “Clarity in student funding and student aid strongly supports access,” said Dr de Gayardon. 

While Dr de Gayardon was sceptical that some leadership teams would have the expertise or capacity to take on the role of landlords, others questioned the market-like concept itself. 

“The proposition is very funny as it makes acceptable for the right wing a policy which is typical of the left – a universal student life and learning allowance – but also makes acceptable for the left wing a policy which is typical for the right – education vouchers and free markets,” said Julien Gossa, associate professor of computer science at the University of Strasbourg.

Others thought the ideas too timid. Martin Adler, emeritus professor at the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, said universities, not agencies, should become wholly responsible for accommodation and catering, while housing benefits to all must stop. “There are lots of issues about inequity in the system,” he said. “The universities should eventually be in charge.” 

The scant two pages offer little detail, but an education ministry official told THE that the ideas matched what student unions and universities minister Sylvie Retailleau have called for amid inflation.

“The major problem...is a negotiation with the ministry of finance,” they said, adding that the annexe would provide ammunition. “You have other mechanisms that are dependent on other ministries,” they said, with tax credits to students’ parents worth about €2 billion alone.

ben.upton@timeshighereducation.com