In France, the expansion of higher education has contributed to a kind of race against time in academic pathways, intensifying the influence of the initial degree on careers. How can we reduce this irreversibility of trajectories and propose a new pact for the democratization of higher education?
An examination of public policy over the past two decades reveals a compromise shared across the political spectrum: expanding access to higher education for young people while accepting a form of creeping privatization, due to a lack of public resources commensurate with the stated ambitions. This explains the gradual increase in tuition fees at engineering schools and institutes of political studies during the 2000s.
This low-cost massification model – the risk of which was already apparent ten years ago – is now endorsed and is proving to be a loser today, insofar as it would reinforce a form of tyranny of the initial diploma and promote the development of mediocre quality training.
How can we propose another pact that recognizes the right to make mistakes and the possibility of a second chance, while also improving the quality of the learning paths?
Low-cost mass production, a default policy
To keep young people occupied at risk of structural unemployment and to enable them to meet the increased demands of the labor market, public authorities have opened the floodgates of higher education, welcoming increasing flows of new high school graduates since 2010. Despite this demographic explosion in the years 2010/2020, investment has not kept pace, and average spending per student has been steadily declining since 2010, as shown by ministerial statistics .
Among these expenditures, the share of public funding in higher education fell from 81.9% in 2010 to 66.6% in 2022, a rate now lower than the average of member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
In parallel with this relative disengagement, the State has nevertheless fueled the rise of a private higher education sector from 2018 onwards, massively supported by public aid for work-study programs which have produced a real boost for the development of apprenticeships in the private sector.
In a context of budgetary tensions where defense or health are emerging as sovereign priorities, the public university – which has developed work-study programs at a slower pace – sees its spending per student continue to decrease.
It is in this situation that the idea of raising tuition fees regularly resurfaces , which would only constitute a further step in this logic of privatization by necessity and sacrifice of youth .
The tyranny of the initial diploma: a French exception
The French model of mass education represents a very particular form of democratization of studies. This mass schooling of young people does not only entail advantages. Indeed, it contributes to reinforcing a deep-seated problem in France: the absolute control exerted by the diploma obtained at twenty over one’s entire career.
Comparing national student survey data, the Eurostudent 8 comparative data is unequivocal. With an average age of 22.4 years, French students are the youngest in Europe. Only 4% of them enter higher education more than two years after completing their baccalaureate, the lowest proportion on the continent. Furthermore, France is one of the few countries that does not produce reliable statistics on gaps taken between bachelor’s and master’s degrees, or on part-time studies.
Numerous sociological studies have shown that this race against time creates immense social pressure. University then becomes a waiting room for managing the anxiety of entering the workforce. This explains the record-high rate of students obtaining a master’s degree. Everything seems to hinge on the age of 18, creating a major injustice for those whose maturity or plans change direction later in life.
The Swedish model offers an alternative vision of the academic path. There, studies resemble a subway where one can hop on and off at different stations throughout one’s life . Unlike the French “TGV,” characterized by a linear, ultra-fast trajectory with no possibility of stopping without risking social demotion, the Swedish system is based on a network logic. Approximately 70% of students begin their studies around the age of 21 or 22, after one or more years of professional experience or gap years. This flexibility allows individuals to build their own personalized path, combining periods of study, paid employment, and personal life.
In this system of “permanent second chances,” a wrong turn is no longer seen as inevitable, but as a normal step in self-discovery. This maturity radically changes the game. Students, older and with well-thought-out plans, are often already established in the job market upon graduation. The question of post-graduation integration, so anxiety-inducing in France, is much less of a concern there.
Make the system more readable
It is imperative to reduce the irreversibility of life trajectories. Withdrawing students from school during their youth would be one way to reduce this irreversibility, preventing successes or failures from becoming fixed at the end of adolescence.
To make journeys less linear and promote a renewed form of democratization, several levers can be activated:
- Value experience in selection procedures by introducing significant bonuses into the Parcoursup and Mon Master algorithms for candidates with extensive extracurricular experience, or by establishing quotas for returning students. The goal is to stop penalizing those who have spent a significant amount of time on the job.
- Promote the activity of younger people, by refocusing existing exemptions and reductions in employer contributions on young people under 21, and by promoting forms of engagement (civic service, etc.).
- Dismantle the financial barriers to resuming studies by reforming the status of continuing education trainees and transforming needs-based scholarships into a lifelong training credit. A 25-year-old returning to their studies should have the same rights as an 18-year-old high school graduate.
This streamlining of academic pathways would inevitably lead to a decrease in the failure rate at the undergraduate level, as university would no longer be a default option but a well-considered choice. It would put an end to the tendency for students to continue their studies after obtaining a master’s degree, often pursuing a new bachelor’s or master’s program —these redundant paths frequently used as a fallback strategy to postpone an anxious confrontation with the job market. By reducing the overall number of master’s students, the system would regain clarity and value.
While the current model appears to have reached its budgetary and pedagogical limits, the shift towards lifelong learning offers a potential solution: a system where the university becomes a lever for empowerment that can be activated at every stage of one’s educational journey. Reducing the irreversibility of educational paths thus emerges not only as a means of social justice, but also as a structural response to the changing job market and the challenges of public funding for higher education.
Author Bio: Nicolas Charles is a Sociologist at the University of Bordeaux
