Florent Pigeon, the president of the Jean Monnet University of Saint-Étienne, was the guest of France Bleu Saint-Étienne Loire, to discuss the state grants but also to reiterate his opposition to a possible increase in the costs of University enrollment.
The State gives fewer subsidies to the University of Saint-Étienne than to other comparable universities. On average 5,800 euros per student, compared to more than 7,500 euros for other universities. “In concrete terms, this represents more than 36 million euros less per year for the Jean Monnet University.“, explains its president Florent Pigeon, who was the guest of France Bleu Saint-Étienne Loire, who was indignant at this situation in a column published on the News tank website.
“As we don’t have sufficient funding from the State, we spent a lot of time and energy finding money or resources elsewhere, for example from industrial, social and economic partners in the territory, as we do. Today, it takes us a lot of time and it prevents us from developing a new training offer”, continues Florent Pigeon. “We have plenty of ideas in Saint-Étienne and we need these resources to enrich this training offer for our 20,000 students. We are therefore calling for transparency and territorial equity in the allocation of these State subsidies. .“
Higher education, an “investment” and not an expense
Florent Pigeon also reacted to this start of controversy on a possible increase in university tuition fees. “We will not be able to stay in a system where higher education is priceless for almost all students” said Emmanuel Macron on January 13 at the conference of university presidents. “We are completely opposed to an increase in tuition fees for our students“, confides Florent Pigeon. “This is not the solution to finance higher education.“
“We must be wary of the Anglo-Saxon model, which is indeed often taken as an example, but very quickly“, explains Florent Pigeon. “The Anglo-Saxon model is a model that costs the states concerned much more than in France, since the students are unable to repay their loans and it is the state that reimburses the banks. Personally, I prefer the Scandinavian model where we consider that higher education is not a cost but an investment. All economists demonstrate this and explain it very clearly how much a euro invested in a territory for higher education and research is profitable for these territories and for the nation.