You advocate for a system of increased tuition based on loans whose repayment would be contingent on employment. Do you think it should be limited to foreign students, as Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen have proposed?
French families fund their children's studies by paying taxes. That is why French students pay little to no tuition. Charging everyone the same tuition means that the education of foreign students is entirely funded by the French people.
Foreign students are a diverse group. They come from everywhere, from developed countries outside the E.U. to emerging countries. Chinese families make sacrifices in order to pay for their children's education in the U.S. Why should France be any different? It makes sense to offer free tuition to students from developing countries as a gesture of solidarity with underprivileged families. Charging all foreign students the same tuition is a bad idea.
If French schools were to raise their tuition, would that make them more or less attractive abroad?
Certain countries view more expensive tuition as a gauge of quality and free tuition as suspect. The Chinese, for example, expect to pay for their education. Higher tuition has no impact on demand there. That said, tuition policy must include merit-based scholarships that take into account the sending country's GDP in an effort to attract the best students.
Will the proposed increase be enough to boost the sagging budgets of French universities? If it were to only apply to foreign students, how much of an increase would be enough?
Targeting foreign students alone will never be enough. France spends 1.4% of its GDP on higher education whereas the average for OECD countries is 1.6%. It's also important to distinguish between different degrees. Ph.D. tuition is fairly low worldwide because students receive research grants. Most of the proposed increase would take place at the master's degree level. I propose raising tuition by €4,000 to €5,000. This would be fully covered by loans whose repayment would be contingent on achieving sufficient post-graduate earnings.
