Social performance, financing and higher education reforms.

Summary We would like universities to offer opportunities to their students, to remedy the massive failure in undergraduate studies, while continuing to democratize. But can we achieve these goals and keep higher education almost free? Government subsidies to universities, which are insufficient, are unlikely to increase much in the future. Australia and the United Kingdom have radically different models in place. They rely on high tuition fees coupled with a widespread system of student loans, the repayment of which is conditional on future earnings. Robert Gary-Bobo argues for a reform based on this model. It would give the means to develop to a French university in serious financial difficulty and which leads many students to a dead end. It would inject more social justice into a system that, paradoxically, benefits mainly young people from privileged backgrounds.