The Conundrum of Making Higher Education More Autonomous [1/2]

None in the US missed the spectacular announcement from the Trump Administration to cut funding to Harvard. In a blatant partisan move, accusing the most prestigious college of America of being a nest of antisemitism and “radical left activism”, the Orange Man revoked billions of funding, before the move getting overturned by a judge. Knowing how rule of law is considered at the eyes of POTUS, the lack of payments after reinstatement notices from federal agencies suggests the US federal government hasn’t finished tampering with higher education. This is barely a tree that hides the forest of the turmoil of US colleges : a strong dependency from governmental funds that might affect their decisions, collaboration in transnational repression against students protesting for stopping the genocide in Gaza, a bubble of student loans menacing the financial stability of institutions and putting in jeopardy the life of many students. A propos, the payment system itself, with the Biden-era repayment program is destabilized by the recent staff reduction and court orders.

The situation across the pond, in France, isn’t that better. In state budgets, the main subsidy for universities has stagnated since 2012, while representing more than 80% of uni resources. Senator Ian Brossat pointed out that University Paris I has its maintenance budget cut by half, in a global budget cut of 20% of the managed funds. As the march 2025 budget went through parliament, college president warned that 80% of french Universities could cease payments, and student unions demanded 8 more billions to sufficiently fund french higher education to put the boat back afloat. Universities, having become more autonomous but also left with less support and with less student and professor representation since the LRU reform, rely more and more on precarious contracts and vacataire status (i.e., people who punctually teach at unis) who have struggled to get paid (1 year payment delays !). And, of course, students gets repressed for manifesting solidarity with Palestine too. But there is an even devilish phenomenon in french higher education.

The Wonderful World of Grandes Écoles

Historically speaking, Grandes Ecoles were elite schools developed by the Ancien Régime to staff the army with capable engineers. Over the centuries, more and more Grandes Écoles sprung, whether by private initiative in the late XIXth century or by state initiative. Almost all of them, to the contrary of french universities, are only accessible via doing a very selective entrance exam. Nowadays, some like mine allow to take such exams after obtaining the Baccalauréat, high school graduation diploma there, but traditionally, entrance is possible after two years of “Prépa”, a preparatory intensive course of 2 years in mathematics, physics, or literature to prepare students specifically for those exams. And of course, they all have their own levels of selection, added to an array of possible mental health problems during it.

Needless to say, those selection mechanism pretends to be meritocratic, but mostly allows the social reproduction of the bourgeoisie [1]. Centrale, Polytechnique, Supaéro, Mines, is the french state-sanctioned equivalent of the Ivy League. Following the Wikipedia article linked above, most high-ranking politicians and business leaders have a diploma from a Grande Ecole. This phenomena can also be explained by the fact that private ones, especially so-called “Business Schools”, funds themselves by student loans provided by banks, recreating slowly the same problem as in the USA as students are forced to work to finance their education. Even as some Grandes Ecoles implement some kind of DEI programs to compensate their unequal design, results are not that present even if the concerned students feel encouraged.

Grandes Écoles also fundamentally differ by their governance. Universities in France used to be under the administration of a state-sanctioned appointed recteur [2], but they are now mandated by law to be managed by a council gathering student, technical workers and researcher representatives, as well as people representing the local administration, companies and a union who elects a university president. Grandes Écoles have their own internal charter, which are not often transparent. As a student of a Grande École, I’ve personally seen how less democratic and vertical they are, by the example of a student who refused to take off their beanie hat.

The student kept it temporarily due to them having trouble with the lecture’s LED screen light, but it annoyed the professor to the point of them requesting her to take it off. Said professor happened to be the lead manager of the equivalent of the License cycle programs at my engineering school. They used their position of power to pressure the student, summoning her before their desk to accuse them of insubordination, with threat of disciplinary action. Nota Bene, there are no student unions on campus, the only student elected body being mostly a mock election to elect a board that will organize parties or bring a hot dog stand to campus. Luckily, the Disability Division stood behind her and the professor gave up, but if the disciplinary board went through, she could’ve not had any possibility of appeal. This is something that would’ve made the rounds on social media in french universities.

Social-Democratic Financial Reforms

Following this lengthy exposé, we can extract several problems at odds with the goal of broadening higher education. First and foremost, the budgetary reliance on either student loans plus private or state-allocated funds, which exposes higher education to the political whim of either actors or the fluctuation of markets. Second, a governance that desperately needs to be focused on professor and student needs, the actual beating heart of the university. Third, a superfluous, elitist stratification of education by either selection or financial means, preventing potential students from furthering their horizons or current students to study in a comfortable environment.

The most obvious and immediate solution of your first problem is to hike subsidies to universities to balance their budget, and lower the cost for students overall. In a context of austerity in Europe — nevermind the absolute disaster that was DOGE in the US — this might be confronted to the necessity of overhauling the fiscal and spending policy of whole states from top to bottom, which I might discuss in another article. A must in such reform would be, as in the US, to split the bill between a federated state or equivalent entity and the central government for both to limit the other’s direct political influence, and add in the balance actors such as the host City or citizen foundations. But an unexpected ally might be financial instruments.

The Norwegian Sovereign Fund, managed by the state’s Central Bank, is an object of many desire. Especially for the immense wealth it holds : +125 billions of euros in the first trimester of 2024, for 1510 billions € of worth at that time. An immense fortune that the Norwegian government can only cash out 4% every year, guided by an ethical council that regulates its investment. What if the state created a fund, that all universities could manage in a collaborative manner ? It would not be a unique manner of funding higher education. Harvard’s endowment, made mostly from gifts carefully managed to follow the will of donors, allows the institution to run smoothly and withstand political pressure. French hospitals in the days of the Ancien Régime were also financed with revenue from gifts, mostly rents from given land [3]. Harvard’s way allows better flow of capital for reinvestment though, haha.

In a strategy for a national wealth fund that the government sufficiently provides with, there should be a sectored part of the fund who shall be administered by the wise actions of university administrations, each allowed to micromanage a little part for their own gains but being contractually pushed towards solidarity with other institutions. In the case of France, it could afford the government dependent universities a little relief from austerity pressure. To get a little bit more revenue, one might keep a very little tuition fee that would stay mostly symbolic. France’s Contribution de Vie Étudiante et de Campus (CVEC) makes students pay 105€ per year to help finance cultural and sport activities on campus; one might make it vary through income to bring a little more money. Exempting working class people and people dependent on scholarships, of course.

In the next issue, we shall address the issue of democratizing governance, as well as trying to imagine the education of a post-capitalist society. Subscribe to not miss our content and support our work :)

In Solidarity,

FurInform

Citations

[1] Pierre BOURDIEU, La Noblesse d’État : Analyse critique des grandes écoles et de l’esprit de corps, op. cit

[2] Jean-François CONDETTE (dir), Les Recteurs : Deux siècles d'engagement pour l'Ecole (1808-2008), Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 1^er septembre 2009, 256 p. (ISBN 978-2-7535-0809-5), p. 22

[3] Nicolas Da Silva, La bataille de la Sécu. Une histoire du système de santé, op. cit