STRUCTURAL ISSUES FOR
FRANCE
OCTOBER 2021
PUBLIC ENTITIES AND POLICIES
UNIVERSITIES BY 2030:
MORE FREEDOMS, MORE
RESPONSIBILITIES
COUR DES COMPTES
3
CONTENTS
5
FOREWORD
7
SUMMARY REPORT
9
INTRODUCTION
11
1 - A REFORM STUCK IN MIDSTREAM
12
A
-
The
challenge
of
increasing
the
number
of
students
15
B - An illusory autonomy
16
C - Increasing differentiation between universities
18
D - The financial challenge
21
2 - OVERCOMING THE SECOND STAGE
22
A - The path to greater autonomy in the
management of universities
23
B - University, the place for student success and
centre for student life
24
C - The university college track
27
REFERENCES TO THE WORK OF THE COURT OF
ACCOUNTS
COUR DES COMPTES
5
This report is part of a body of work intended to present, for several major
public policies, the main challenges that public decision-makers will face
in the coming years and the levers that could make it possible to meet
them. This series of publications, which runs from October to December
2021, follows on from the report submitted in June 2021 to the President
of the Republic,
A public finance strategy to exit the crisis.
This summary
work aims to develop, for several essential structural issues, diagnostic
elements resulting from previous work of the Court and courses of action
capable of consolidating long-term growth while reinforcing the fairness,
effectiveness and efficiency of public policies.
In accordance with its constitutional mission of informing citizens, the
Court wished to develop a new approach, which differs from its usual
work, and thus make, through this series of deliberately very concise and
targeted reports, its contribution to the public debate, while taking care to
leave open the various possible avenues of reform.
This report was deliberated by the 3rd chamber and approved by the Court
of Accounts' Publication and Planning Committee.
The publications of the Court of Accounts are accessible online on the
website of the Court and the regional and territorial chambers of accounts:
www.ccomptes.fr
.
FOREWORD
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7
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The university landscape has been profoundly reorganised over the past fifteen
years by a continuous series of reforms. Despite the progress brought about by the
2007 Law on university freedoms and responsibilities (LRU), universities’ autonomy
is still restricted due to ill-defined responsibilities and actions that are sometimes
partially accomplished. However, there are many challenges: responding to the
continual increase in the student demographic while improving the conditions for
supporting student life; going beyond the stage of an illusory autonomy, whether
in the fields of human resources management, assets, internal organisation, or even
the good administration of research within universities; facing in an intelligible
manner the problems of differentiation between establishments, and finally,
meeting the financial challenge with regard to both public financing and own
resources.
In view of this observation, the various work produced by the Court makes it
possible to distinguish three levers of action that can be mobilised over the next
ten years. The first concerns increasing autonomy, which involves reforming the
mechanism for allocating resources, through granting new freedoms to implement
a genuine recruitment and human resources management strategy, full-status
recognition of a research operator, and the general decentralisation of assets.
The second line of thought leads us to think of the university as a genuine place
for success and centre of student life, and to make it the sole point of contact
for students. The third avenue for the future would be to accept and manage the
differences between universities, which would open up the prospect of creating
university colleges.
Key figures
•
Of
2.7 million
students,
1.6 million
are enrolled in university, a
10%
increase over five years
•
There are
73
universities, ranging from
2,000
to
80,000
students
•
Only
45%
of undergraduate students graduate in
3, 4 or 5 years
•
The average cost of the student amounts to
€11,000
8
UNIVERSITIES BY 2030: MORE FREEDOMS, MORE RESPONSIBILITIES
GIVE MORE FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITIES
TO UNIVERSITIES BY 2030
Develop greater autonomy
in the management of
universities
Advance the university
college track
Make university a place
for student success and
a centre for student life
COUR DES COMPTES
9
INTRODUCTION
Universities’ autonomy was instituted as a principle and ambition by the Law on
university freedoms and responsibilities (LRU) of August 2007. Since then, the
public authorities, all administrations included, have continued to encourage this
objective.
Universities have for the most part seized the new responsibilities which were
granted to them by law, but their room for progress is now limited. The French
university model, which still hesitates between centralisation and autonomy, is not
completed. According to comparisons made in 2017 by the European University
Association (EUA) covering 29 European countries or regions, France is ranked
20th in terms of organisational autonomy, 24th in terms of financial autonomy and
27th in terms of human resources autonomy. By broadening the comparisons to
the OECD, the amount of expenditure devoted by France to its higher education in
2018 corresponds to the average of member countries, i.e. 1.45% of gross domestic
product (GDP). However, this ratio places it far behind the United States, the United
Kingdom and Norway, which exceed or are close to 2%. The 2017 White Paper on
higher education and research sets the target for funding higher education to 2% of
GDP, which would assume an increase in government spending of €10 billion over
ten years. Whereas this condition is not fulfilled, the number of students continues
to increase. 1.7 million students have enrolled in university at the start of the 2021
academic year, a figure up 10% in five years.
In this context of financial strain on the university system already mentioned by
the Court in June 2021 in its report
A public finance strategy to exit the crisis,
the challenges to be met are immense. Admittedly, since 2007, the university
community has invested heavily in gradually taking over a large part of the new
responsibilities which are now incumbent on it. It is also significant that the
accounts and management of universities have, overall, improved in recent years,
which is to the credit of their management teams. Certain areas of education
and research position the French university in the leading group of international
rankings. The governance, lecturers and administrative staff have often shown,
during the health crisis, a significant capacity for mobilisation. This involvement and
responsiveness to changes deserve to be highlighted.
Nonetheless, the reform of our university system has remained stuck in midstream,
as shown in the first part of this report which takes a retrospective look at the last
fifteen years. This assessment highlights the persistence of obstructive elements,
10
UNIVERSITIES BY 2030: MORE FREEDOMS, MORE RESPONSIBILITIES
which prevent consideration of "Act II of autonomy" called for by the Conference of
University Presidents. The second part of the report considers levers of action likely
to remove the obstacles that keep universities stranded in midstream and prevent
them from becoming part of a trend in a landscape that is finally stable and has
been reorganised.
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11
1 - A REFORM STUCK IN MIDSTREAM
The history of the French university is marked
by stages that have shaped its identity over
the centuries, but the pace of change has
accelerated considerably over the past two
decades.
The continuous reorganisation of the landscape
After the initial structuring of universities resulting from the Napoleonic reforms, the
Third Republic permanently froze the institutional landscape around the duality between
grandes écoles
and universities, the first being selective and accessible through preparatory
classes, the second geared towards those with a baccalaureate, and located in sixteen
large cities (a geography partly recognisable today on the map of the most impressive
universities by size and the establishment of initiatives of excellence). In the last third of
the 20th century, major reforms - such as the 1968 Faure law and 1984 Savary law - sought
to respond to the explosion in the student demographic and new social aspirations by
universities acquiring legal personality, by extending the duration of higher education
studies, creating short professional training courses (higher education vocational sections
[STS-
sections of higher technicians
] and University institutes of technology - IUT), and
finally by significantly restructuring universities (splitting up the universities in Paris and
major cities, creating universities in new and medium-sized towns). This led to separating
the higher education map from that of research, this phenomenon having in part been
corrected from the 1970s through creating joint research units (UMR), initially shared
with the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS [
Centre national de la recherche
scientifique
]), and then with all research organisations. These steps in the universities’
history have been taken over a long period.
Since the 2000s, the reforms implemented
have been a succession of reviews and
innovations carried out at a frantic pace
of one every two years on average.
The
scope, number and overlapping of laws
and regulations have upset the landscape
of higher education and research which is
still not stabilised, in particular with regard
to universities: the establishment of the LMD
(Bachelor's degree-Master-Doctorate) in
anticipation of European harmonisation in
2002, creation of the National Research Agency
(ANR) in 2005 and, with it, development of
funding through calls for projects, and the
2006 Research Programme Law creating in
particular the PRES (research and higher
education centres [
Pôles de recherche et
d’enseignement supérieur
]) and the Research
and Higher Education Evaluation Agency
(AERES [
Agence d’évaluation de la recherche
et de l’enseignement supérieur
]), the 2007 Law
on University Freedoms and Responsibilities
12
UNIVERSITIES BY 2030: MORE FREEDOMS, MORE RESPONSIBILITIES
(LRU), Campus Plan in 2008, creation of the
post-baccalaureate admission procedure (APB)
in 2009, the future investment programmes
(PIA) from 2010 spearheading the initiatives
of excellence (IDEX), the 2013 Law on Higher
Education and Research, which in particular
creates new university groups and replaces
AERES with the High Council for the Evaluation
of Research and Higher Education (HCERES),
the 2018 Law on the Guidance and Success
of Students (ORE), which replaces APB with
Parcoursup, the Order of December 2018
authorising experimental establishments,
reform of the first year common to health
studies (PACES) in 2019 and finally the 2020
Research Programming Law (LPR). All these
reforms and implementing texts have given
rise to improvements, an abundance of projects
but also confusion.
The institutional landscape has become
blurred.
Attempts at groupings, mergers,
associations and site policies have followed one
another in search of coherence quickly shaken
up by changes in prerogatives or the creation
of institutional frameworks that immediately
expired. Thus, the 26 PRES gave way to 19
university and establishment communities
(COMUE) created by law in 2013 whose
disappointing results led not only to their
virtual disappearance (the Inter-ministerial
Committee for Public Transformation of 15
November 2019 even decided to abolish them)
but also to the emergence of new grouping
methods proposed by the Order in 2018.
Many entities disappear, some universities
have merged. This process leads to the birth
of larger and fewer new establishments but
without necessarily the management resources
suited to their sudden growth.
What can citizens and students understand
from these thwarted series of reforms and
these infinitely variable groupings? A student
may have started their studies in 2013 and
completed them in 2021 by obtaining a
doctorate from a university that has changed
its status, positioning of its disciplinary fields,
name, or even disappeared in favour of another.
A - The challenge of the growing
number of students
The continuous increase in the student
demographic is a critical issue.
At the start
of the 2019 academic year, French higher
education and research had 2.72 million
students (including 1.67 million enrolled at
university), i.e. an increase of around 243,700
students over the last five years (+ 9.6%).
This increase represents in volume the
equivalent of ten medium-sized universities.
Universities, which accommodate 56% of the
student population and absorb 44% of new
baccalaureate holders (225,000 students),
are directly affected by these strong upward
trends which will continue, according to
available estimates, until 2029. For 2020
alone, universities (IUT [university institutes
of technology] not included) had to integrate
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Table 1: access to and success in higher education
Source: Court of Accounts, according to data from SIES
General data on access to and success in higher education
Percentage of children of executives or of those in intermediate occupations,
studying or having studied in higher education
76%
Percentage of children of workers or employees, studying or having studied in
higher education
48%
Percentage of undergraduate students graduating in 3, 4 or 5 years
45%
Despite the existence of multiple social
openness mechanisms (e.g. "
cordées de la
réussite
", the "best baccalaureate holder"
system abolished by the 2020 Research
Programming Law, the creation of the
new scholarship levels 0bis and 7 in 2013,
etc.), applied without always taking stock,
significant disparities in terms of success
between general, technological and vocational
baccalaureate holders remain. The success
of general baccalaureate holders is thus
higher (56.5%) than that of technological
baccalaureate holders (19.8%) or that of
vocational baccalaureate holders (7.7%).
We can only wonder about the performance
of undergraduate training despite the
improvements hoped for in this regard after
the implementation of the ORE law, the
Parcoursup platform in 2018, the reform of
the PACES in 2019 and the creation of the
University Bachelor of Technology in 2021. For
families from informed backgrounds and high
social and cultural classes, the preparatory
class [
classe préparatoire
] remains more
attractive than university in most disciplines.
32,000 additional students with almost the
same resources. The student-teacher ratio
therefore continues to deteriorate. Despite the
implementation of
Parcoursup
, universities still
fail to manage their inflow of students. The
bachelor's degree is in fact open to all without a
selection procedure at the start of the courses
and with the application of guidance criteria
that are not very transparent.
Faced with this demographic growth,
access to higher education remains largely
dependent on students’ social background.
14
UNIVERSITIES BY 2030: MORE FREEDOMS, MORE RESPONSIBILITIES
Graph 1: access to and success in higher education
Source: SIES,
Enseignement supérieur, Recherche et Innovation en chiffres
[Higher education, Research and Innovation
in figures] 2018, p.12
Interpretation: 91% of students enrolled in a professional bachelor’s
degree [Licence professionnelle] graduate in 1 or 2 years.
0
20
40
60
80
100
Master (M)
(2013 cohort)
General
bachelor’s
degree (LG)
(2012 cohort)
Professional
bachelor’s
degree (LP)
(2014 cohort)
64.1%
41.0%
91.3%
LP: success in 1 year
LG: success in 3 years
M: success in 2 years
LP: success in 2 years
LG: success in 4 years
M: success in 3 years
Total success
(1) Results for the 2016 session, according to the different cohorts.
These initial inequalities are heightened by
the poor conditions in which universities
manage student life.
Unlike many countries,
particularly in Europe, social support,
accommodation, catering and the organisation
of student life are mainly managed by external
actors such as the CNOUS [national body
in charge of coordinating student services]
and 27 CROUS [regional centres providing
student services]. The current organisation
is complex, increasing the number of offices
and stakeholders which students must
contact. In 2015, the Court highlighted certain
shortcomings of the CROUS: very inadequate
monitoring of attendance for scholarships,
despite the budgetary priority from which
they benefit, shortcomings in the supply of
student accommodation, or even an insufficient
university catering service. The distribution
of assistance and support does not allow for
the establishment of a coherent, responsive
and campus-focused social policy. The quality
of the welcome for students, confronted
with a system that is not transparent, is
felt in particular by foreign students. These
shortcomings do not allow students to fully
recognise "their" university as a community
which simultaneously welcomes, trains and
supports them during their studies, which
explains the poor sense of belonging. The
evident weakness of the networks of students
and former students is proof of this. In France,
university is not perceived as an "Alma Mater",
according to the formula used in Switzerland,
Belgium or Canada. Despite the efforts of
officials and lecturers to pay attention to
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15
students, especially during the health crisis,
students’ relationship with their university is
purely practical: training and graduating. Very
few universities have succeeded in developing
with their students a lasting sense of belonging
or sense of being part of a project.
B - An illusory autonomy
In the absence of a legal or regulatory
definition, the principle of university autonomy
can be understood as the authority granted
to each of them to set its own rules within
academic, financial, organisational and human
resources fields.
The 2007 LRU law and the gradual transition
of broader responsibilities and powers to
universities were a major step,
which has
resulted in a more presidential type system of
university governance, the integration of the
wage bill into their budget, globalisation of
the subsidy for public services allocated by the
State, better management of the employment
map and finally, the development of tools
intended to increase the institutions' own
resources (university foundations, subsidiaries
for promoting research, etc.).
In terms of recruitment and human resources,
an area that has remained a blind spot since
2007, the 2020 Research Programming Law
made it possible to take a step forward by
introducing, with a cap of 25% on annual
recruitments, a new mechanism for local
hiring by contract. This dispensation from
competitive recruitment inspired by the
American
tenure tracks
(junior professorships)
abolishes the obligation of qualification by the
CNU (
Conseil national des universités
[National
Council of Universities]) for the recruitment of
university professors and creates employment
contracts more suited to the timing of
research projects (employment contract for
a mission of an indefinite duration). At the
same time, universities have benefited from a
relaxation in national accreditation procedures
allowing them to design differentiated training
strategies.
Despite these advances, there is little
leeway for universities.
A university which
does not control either its recruitment or
the management of staff promotions and
career development cannot be described
as "autonomous". Maintaining national
recruitment procedures for research-
professors (qualification by the CNU)
hampers training and research policies, by
limiting the pool of potential candidates
and restricting the possibilities for internal
professional development. The management
of administrative staff’s careers by local
education authorities and the Ministry of
Higher Education, Research and Innovation
further deprives heads of institutions of
essential management levers. Finally, the staff
of research organisations present on university
sites (researchers, engineers, technicians or
other administrative staff) are not considered
for management or, at the very least, joint
management by universities, due to a lack of
close coordination with research organisations
managing these human resources.
The devolution to universities of their building
infrastructure, which would be a strong
symbol and realisation of their inclusion in
their area, remains at an impasse.
The LRU and
various plans (university plan 2000, campus
plan) have initiated a process that should
lead to the devolution of real estate assets to
universities. Few of them have so far opted
for this path. University buildings represent
nearly 18 million built square meters, making
universities one of the main beneficiaries of
16
UNIVERSITIES BY 2030: MORE FREEDOMS, MORE RESPONSIBILITIES
the State's public domain. With the massive
investment of the 1990s and 2000s and the
creation of new universities, many buildings
with poor energy performance were built for
training and laboratories. The renovation of
these assets is a priority; their maintenance, on
a daily basis and for major works, is a necessity.
The Court has observed in most of its audits
that many universities have no means of
achieving this, sometimes for lack of expertise
in the matter, often for lack of funding. As a
result, too many buildings are unsuitable or
dilapidated, without it being possible in the
medium term to bring them up to the expected
level of comfort and safety. Having failed to
assess the scale of university buildings, central
government, in spite of guidance texts, cannot
hope for a successful outcome of transferring
buildings to the universities which occupy
them. Although devolution is considered by the
inspectorates to lead to managerial progress,
the number of universities with full ownership
of their buildings remains limited.
University governance has made progress
in recent years, but it is waiting for a second
wind.
While an elective system entrusts
research professors with complex management
responsibilities, they are in no way prepared
for the responsibilities they exercise. Boards
of Governors, in too many cases, leave little
room for representation by members outside
the university. The agendas, which legislation
makes mandatory, also dissuade the latter
from attending long and tedious sessions in
which strategic debates are reduced to the bare
minimum. The general managers of services
(DGS [
directeurs généraux des services
]),
essential links for informed governance, are still
too often relegated to a subordinate role and
their status remains uncertain. Recruitment for
their administrative teams is rarely a priority.
The so-called autonomous universities
clearly remain dependent on the Ministry.
Although the reforms of the last fifteen years
all move towards greater managerial freedom,
the framework remains highly centralised,
characterised by financial and human resources
determined by central government or even
administrative and educational organisation
rules that are equally applied to all universities,
whatever their purpose, size and location. In
reality, the full potential of the LRU law has not
yet been fully exploited.
C - Increasing differentiation between
universities
The essence of the LRU law was to bring about
the emergence of around ten world-class
universities. However, the purpose of the other
universities was not clarified. Discrimination
has taken place as a result of ultra-selective
instruments entrusted to international panels
whose composition has not much changed
in ten years. The initiatives of excellence
(IDEXs) or the calls for projects of the future
investment programmes (PIAs) are the most
visible markers of this evolution. This leads to a
demarcation with an unclear outline between
universities with new and vast resources and
those which, lacking assertiveness or initial
capacities, have not been able to overcome
the difficulties of the competitive process
for projects. The Europeanisation of higher
education systems and increased international
competition, particularly revealed by extensive
media coverage of international university
rankings from 2003 (Shanghai, THE, QS, etc.),
only exacerbate these trends.
Sometimes spectacularly, sometimes
quietly, differentiation took place which
is not recognised by the education code.
Within a context still marked by the divides
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17
between
grandes écoles
and universities, on
the one hand, and research organisations
and establishments, on the other hand, the
many successive and cumulative mechanisms
have led universities to form two groups, one
grouping together small and medium-sized
universities, and the other grouping together
those with an IDEX label. They thus tend to
defend different, if not divergent, interests,
outside the powers that normally fall to the
Conference of University Presidents, even
though some universities are struggling to
belong to either group. The Order of December
2018 had the effect of further increasing
the differentiation between institutions to
the detriment of being able to understand
the landscape on an international scale.
Increasingly marked inequalities are widening
between institutions. The top-ranked
institutions tend to benefit from new resources
while, perhaps already irreversibly, universities
with the least selective funding are destined to
remain so.
These differentiating factors, sometimes
presented as a form of Darwinian natural
selection, are mainly based, in particular
from international rankings, on the criterion
of research,
ignoring the university’s original
mission of knowledge transfer. The training
itself (from the quality of teaching to the
conditions for delivering training) has rarely or
not at all been included in the project selection
criteria. As a result, education and student
life are not indicators that are truly taken
into account when distributing the massive
resources allocated to calls for projects. The
universities that welcome the largest number
of undergraduate students are rarely the
beneficiaries of these subsidies. Differentiating
between institutions based on research is a
powerful and unacceptable factor of inequality
between universities and, ultimately, of
segregation between students. The emergence
of world-class university champions should not
result in a divided university system.
The exclusion of training from the selective
differentiation criteria should not mask
the difficulties encountered by university
research.
Becoming increasingly competitive,
it is subject to organisational rules that do not
promote its development. The joint research
units (UMRs [
Unités mixte de recherche
]), by
nature, largely elude universities. Research
organisations have not experienced the
organisational upheavals that have imposed
themselves on universities; their presence
within the joint research units is seen as a mark
of quality. However, there is nothing favourable
about the management of these laboratories
which is fragmented and not transparent.
Under these conditions, it will be difficult for
universities to appear in international rankings
relying on their own strengths and merits.
D - The financial challenge
The lock on financial resources, both public
funding and universities' own resources, is the
most difficult to unlock.
Public funding for universities is out of step
with reality.
National expenditure for higher
education returned in 2018 to its 2007 level.
Due to the increasing number of students,
the average expenditure per student fell in
2019 to €11,530 in universities, compared
with €14,270 in higher education vocational
sections [
sections de techniciens supérieurs
]
and €15,700 in preparatory classes for
grandes
écoles
. This average expenditure tends to
decline as shown in graph 2. Universities are
dependent on a poorly assessed subsidy for
18
UNIVERSITIES BY 2030: MORE FREEDOMS, MORE RESPONSIBILITIES
public service costs that represents between
78% and 82% of their resources (€10.5 billion).
This government contribution is almost entirely
devoted to the wage bill. As a result, universities
have very little or sometimes even no leeway
to meet their operating or investment needs,
whether in terms of property, training or IT
infrastructure expenditure.
As for the contribution to higher education
and research by local authorities, in 2019 it
amounted to €1.7 billion, including €800 million
for education and student life and €910 million
for research and innovation.
Although established at the macroeconomic
level, the underfunding of French universities
remains a poorly understood fact.
It is
impossible to determine the scale of this
while the university system is unable to break
down its costs. No stakeholder, ministry,
local education authority or university has
acquired the means to establish them. Few
universities are able to present the cost of
training reliably. As a result, the average
cost of a student published by the Ministry
(€11,530) appears to be quite theoretical.
The differences in costs between training or
courses, as currently estimated, i.e. without
cost accounting and without taking student
life into account, are therefore questionable.
The allocation of resources by the Ministry and
the contracts which bind it to each university
are more like a lump sum calculation, the bases
of which do not fairly integrate the effect of
demographic pressure, than meeting the actual
needs of each university. The lack of exact
knowledge about their costs, and therefore
about their control, is an aberration. It leads
universities to live in financial uncertainty with
a total lack of transparency vis-à-vis public
authorities, taxpayers, local administrators as
well as lecturers and students.
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19
Graph 2: change in expenditure per student
Source: MENJS-MESRI-DEPP, Compte de l’éducation
Metropolitan France + French Overseas Departments and Regions
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2010
2005
2015
2019 [p]
6,000
8,000
10,000
12,000
14,000
16,000
€18,000
[p] provisional.
Total
STS
Preparatory classes
University
The mobilisation of universities’ own
resources, often cited in recent years as a
solution to ease the financial pressure, must
be encouraged but there are also limits.
In the field of training, enrolment fees are
fixed.
Their low cost is equivalent to almost free
higher education for university students. At the
start of the September 2021 academic year, the
fees amounted to €170 for a bachelor's degree,
€243 for a master's and €380 for a doctorate.
If we considered a substantial increase in the
amount of these fees, the effect would be
significant but far from being able to meet the
challenges.
20
UNIVERSITIES BY 2030: MORE FREEDOMS, MORE RESPONSIBILITIES
Should the enrolment fees be increased?
Regularly mentioned, the increase in enrolment fees raises many social problems and
management difficulties; it must be linked to respect for the constitutional principle of
free education. As the Court demonstrated in 2018, by applying a significant multiplier, e.g.
by increasing them to €730 for a bachelor's degree, €887 for a master's and €1,380 for a
doctorate, the overall revenue obtained would be around €1 billion.
The resources that universities derive from
their own degrees, continuing education or
apprenticeship are below potential.
Apart
from the fact that these resources are not
all included in the general budget but are
acquired through training, they are largely
undersized. Universities have not taken up the
challenge of continuing education, the financial
potential of which is considerable. It remains
underdeveloped, although it contributed
€323 million to universities in 2017. The
same is true of apprenticeships, which then
represented tax revenue of €101 million for
universities. These training courses require
specific engineering and the establishment of
internal infrastructure, including apprenticeship
training centres (CFA) which are still too often
outsourced. Finally, this issue is made worse
by pricing that is very rarely based on cost
accounting, without which, generating a profit
margin that creates wealth and therefore
autonomy is an illusion.
Own resources stemming from research are
more significant,
once they come from calls for
projects from the National Research Agency
(ANR) or future investment programmes
(PIA), or from European calls. These selective
resources are unevenly distributed. They can
be lasting, like the initiatives of excellence
(IDEX), or limited in time, which poses a serious
problem of survival for some laboratories.
Not all of them return to the general budget
and may remain flagged for research or an
individual programme.
In total, universities' own revenues, including
that derived from foundations, represent, in
their diversity, about 5.5% of their resources.
They are negligible and, for many of them,
destined to remain so. Other own resources
are in fact minimal: the LRU law gives the
opportunity to create partnership foundations
which currently provide limited resources to
universities (€17.6 million in 2017). Likewise, if
the Initial Finance Act for 2018 inserted into
the General Public Entities Property Code
[
code général de la propriété des personnes
publiques
] a provision which authorises higher
education establishments to develop their
assets, the operations likely to free up financial
resources are difficult to estimate and are, in
any case, only marginal.
COUR DES COMPTES
21
2 - OVERCOMING THE SECOND STAGE
The Court’s recent work makes it possible
to distinguish several levers of action that
may remove various obstacles which hamper
the development of universities with greater
autonomy and responsibilities. The options
available make it possible to respond to a new
definition of what the university could be by
2030. This is a perspective where progression,
experiments and volunteering all have their
place. The autonomy of universities is not seen
as an end in itself, but as the condition of a
contract between the university's public service
and society.
Source: Court of Accounts
Graph 3: what actions can the university focus on up to 2030?
Training
Research
Innovation
Documentation
Student
life
Professional
integration
Governance
CAMPUS
22
UNIVERSITIES BY 2030: MORE FREEDOMS, MORE RESPONSIBILITIES
A - The path to greater autonomy in
the management of universities
A reform of the system for allocating
resources to universities appears necessary,
on condition, however, that they undertake to
balance their income and expenditure. Such
a requirement cannot be met with current
contracts, which are too changeable and lack
any constraints in the event of non-compliance
with their provisions. As recommended by
the Court in June 2021 in its report
A public
finance strategy to exit the crisis
, the university
of tomorrow, like other state operators,
could have a multiyear contract with five-
year goals and resources (CPOM [
contrat
pluriannuel d’objectifs et de moyens
]), in
which central government and the university
would make reciprocal, lasting and verifiable
commitments. The university would gain from
this in managing its multiyear goals; central
government could lay down the conditions of
its financing in the CPOM. The CPOM should
be understood as an instrument which conveys
in an individualised way the purpose and
added value of each establishment in terms of
training and research. The HCERES evaluations
should contribute more to calculating the
needs and opportunities for savings and
supply the essential progress reports of
the CPOM. This scenario for improving the
managerial instruments presupposes reliable
cost accounting and therefore a substantial
improvement in information systems, an
objective regularly reiterated by the Court.
In order to free up new funding, without
returning to the aforementioned issue of
enrolment fees, two scenarios should be
explored. The first would be to cap the
research tax credit.
The tax expenditure thus
saved would allow central government to
redeploy significant budgetary resources to
universities, for education and research
The second would involve authorising
universities to create all types of subsidiaries,
thus departing from the principle of
specialisation of public institutions.
They
would gain a new dynamism from them for
their own resources, including for training.
Certain universities, in particular scientific
ones, have moreover already tried to create
subsidiaries in the few rare cases provided for
by law; this is particularly the case in Lyon and
Bordeaux.
The responsible university should have new
freedom to carry out its recruitment strategy
and human resources policy.
This would
involve going back over the impossibility which
university presidents encounter in promoting
administrative staff or in appointing, except
in certain experimental establishments,
department heads. It follows that career
progression, promotions and exemptions
from teaching or research should be based
on differentiated career monitoring and
continuous evaluation (proportion of teaching,
administrative activities, quality of research,
etc.) carried out by the university itself.
A simplification of recruitment procedures,
and of administrative, technical, social, health
and library sector personnel (BIATSS), the
management of which is still very centralised,
should be initiated. For the recruitment of
research professors, qualification and
selection procedures should be reviewed and,
no doubt, a reform of the National Council
of Universities (CNU) should be considered;
doctorates awarded by universities should
be repositioned and enhanced. Mistrust of
this academic title largely explains the use of
external qualifications implemented by the
CNU.
The question also arises concerning the
COUR DES COMPTES
23
university's responsibility for its research.
Observed by the Court in some of its work, the
unintelligible organisation of joint research
units (UMRs) is a source of financial risk and
administrative disorder, and sometimes also
results in a lack of scientific transparency. To
be competitive research operators, French
universities would have to meet the standards
applied in other countries, which is not possible
if they are unable to manage the laboratories
located on their sites. To do this, management
of the UMRs could be fully delegated to them.
From this perspective, it would be desirable
for the researchers attached to these units
to also be integrated and merge with those
of research professors, so that the university
becomes the sole employer (and is thus able
to pay subsidies). These employees would thus
be responsible for a teaching mission, which
would seek to strengthen the supervision of
students enrolled in all university courses
and would further improve the link between
training and research. The organisations
would, for their part, become funding agencies,
specialised in the areas concerning them, and
their regional establishments would disappear,
thus bringing about significant economies of
scale throughout the country. The prospect of
merging these organisations with the National
Research Agency (ANR) could eventually be
considered.
The need to train management teams,
taken in their broad sense (presidents, vice-
presidents, representatives, heads of university
departments (UFRs) or laboratories), before
they assume their duties, seems even
greater as the technical nature of the actions
devolved to institutions has increased. This
mid-career stage would allow the university
world to prepare a pool of expertise to access
managerial functions. This support could be
provided by organisations specialising in the
field of public management, such as the new
National Institute of Public Service [
Institut
national du service public
]. As the function
of the general managers of services (DGS) is
strategic, it would seem appropriate that the
status of the individuals called upon to perform
such functions be strengthened. Similarly, it
would be wise to diversify the composition of
the Boards of Governors and the recruitment
processes.
It is in keeping with the transition to greater
responsibilities that universities become
owners of their assets,
in order to carry out
maintenance more effectively and gradually
bring them in line with safety standards
with regard to the rules in force in terms of
safety, the environment and accessibility for
people with reduced mobility. The creation of
subsidiaries established as "university property
companies", in charge of this property portfolio,
is one avenue which could professionalise its
management.
B - University, the place for student
success and centre for student life
In keeping with the provisions enacted by
the LRU law, universities should offer more
training in line with changes in the labour
market and employment opportunities.
This obligation, which is imposed on initial
training or apprenticeships, applies all the
more to continuing education, the benefits of
which could, thanks to a welcome change in
regulations, be added to the general budget on
the basis of consistent and logical pricing for
each training course. Student entrepreneurship
and, more broadly, interaction throughout their
studies with the world of work, through an
internship policy or placement, should become
common training methods.
24
UNIVERSITIES BY 2030: MORE FREEDOMS, MORE RESPONSIBILITIES
Distance learning, in which interest has been
shown due to the health crisis,
allows, without
being a substitute for face-to-face teaching,
educational innovations and offers undeniable
simplicity. The development of hybrid teaching
models, in addition to the savings in operating
costs that it could generate, could prompt a
review of the teacher-student relationship, in
particular to reinforce it. It could also promote
educational alliances between French and
European universities, offering new training
opportunities for students. This digital
challenge requires investment in their distance
learning capability through ergonomic tools
and properly adapted infrastructure.
As universities are there to serve students,
they should more generally be rethought of
as a centre for student life.
Better prepared
thanks to reinforced guidance mechanisms
from secondary school onwards and based
on specific modules provided by properly
trained head teachers, the university should of
course first appear as a vehicle for intellectual
achievement, success and professional
integration, but also as a space of well-
being. To this end and in order to improve
the consideration of needs, universities could
take over, through subsidiaries, the remit
of the CROUS [regional centres providing
student services] and integrate the staff,
resources and skills assigned to them.
They
would thus be direct points of contact for
students in matters of accommodation, meals,
health, cultural life or scholarships. Such a
development could only strengthen the sense
of belonging and recognition students have in
respect of their university.
C - The university college track
Universities have a shared public service
responsibility even if each one is permitted to
seek out and assert its uniqueness,
whether
it concerns the disciplines and specialities
taught, the training available, the fields of
research and its development or employment
opportunities. However, this differentiation
must be regulated to avoid the establishment
of a multi-tier university system, with privileged
institutions and those left behind, and in order
to distribute public resources more fairly.
The performance and improvement in results
of undergraduate training constitute a
determining objective in itself as well as for the
allocation of associated funding.
One avenue merits further consideration:
that of the university college.
Each university
could create a university college within it,
accommodating all training with two or three
years' higher education (general bachelor's
degrees, university bachelor of technology
- BUT), or possibly also preparatory classes
for the
grandes écoles
and higher education
vocational sections [
sections de techniciens
supérieurs
]. This model would therefore
concern the common integration of students
with school status, higher education vocational
sections (262,000) and preparatory classes for
grandes écoles
(85,000). The landscape would
be easier to understand for secondary school
students, whose choice would be simpler at
the end of the baccalaureate. The courses
within university colleges could no longer be
organised by disciplines (corresponding to
the sections of the CNU) but according to a
gradual specialisation within major disciplinary
fields (humanities, life sciences, etc.) which
would give everyone the time to find their path.
The more specialised teaching of preparatory
classes for the
grandes écoles
could be added
to this. University colleges could then be
assigned all or some of the secondary school
teachers working in preparatory classes and
COUR DES COMPTES
25
higher education vocational sections. These
jobs would be added to those of research
professors.
Ultimately, universities that wish to do so could
decide to focus their training offer primarily
on the university college and be financially
supported for this purpose.
With the establishment of the university
college, the aim is also to increase the student-
teacher ratio, in order to achieve the best
standards of OECD countries.
If it is adopted, such a transformation of the
university system towards more autonomy
and responsibility should inevitably be
accompanied by a clarification of the
powers between central government and
local government,
insufficiently involved in
university strategy. Called on to finance certain
actions on an ad hoc basis, local government
does not participate in the contractual dialogue
conducted by central government and is not a
signatory of a "five-year" contract. In order to
involve them more, in particular the regions,
established as leaders in higher education and
research by the NOTRe law, the negotiation
and signing of contracts between the regions
and universities within their jurisdiction would
allow universities to be more firmly rooted in
the region.
COUR DES COMPTES
27
REFERENCES TO THE WORK OF
THE COURT OF ACCOUNTS
The Court has carried out a great deal of work in recent years on which it has drawn,
in particular the following publications:
l
A public finance strategy to exit the crisis,
June 2021;
l
Le Haut conseil de l’évaluation de la recherche et de l’enseignement supérieur
[The High Council for the Evaluation of Research and Higher Education],
observations to the minister, June 2021;
l
Le Centre national de la recherche scientifique et les sciences humaines et
sociales
[The National Centre for Scientific Research and Human and Social
Sciences], observations to the minister, April 2021;
l
Note d’exécution budgétaire pour 2020
[Budget implementation note for 2020],
April 2021;
l
The relationship between the state and its operators,
report requested by the
National Assembly's public policy assessment and monitoring committee,
January 2021;
l
Un premier bilan de l’accès à l’enseignement supérieur dans le cadre de la loi
orientation et réussite des étudiants
[An initial assessment of access to higher
education within the framework of the law on the guidance and success of
students], communication to the National Assembly's Public Policy Assessment
and Monitoring Committee, February 2020;
l
Les droits d’inscription dans l’enseignement supérieur public
[Enrolment fees in
public higher education], communication to the National Assembly’s Finance,
General Economy and Budgetary Control Committee, November 2018;
l
Initiatives d’excellence et politique de regroupement universitaire
[Initiatives of
excellence and university regrouping policy], observations to the minister, June
2018;
l
L’autonomie financière des universités, une réforme à poursuivre
[The financial
autonomy of universities, a reform to be pursued], communication to the
Senate’s Finance Committee, September 2015;
l
Le réseau des œuvres universitaires et scolaires : une modernisation indispensable
[The network of university and school works: an essential modernisation],
annual public report, February 2015;
The Court of Accounts has also used the final (unpublished) observations that it
sent to the following universities: Burgundy, Limoges and Paris XIII in 2021, Paris
I, Strasbourg and Versailles Saint Quentin in 2020, Avignon and Bordeaux in 2019,
EZUS Lyon, Lyon III, Paris 4 and Paris 6 in 2018, Artois, Lille 2, Lille 3, Toulouse II and
Toulouse III in 2017, and Avignon, Toulouse I and Valenciennes in 2016.
The Court of Accounts’ publications are available on the website:
www.ccomptes.fr
This report is available on the Court of Accounts’ website:
www.ccomptes.fr
STRUCTURAL ISSUES FOR
FRANCE
OCTOBER 2021