France is the 3rd country of destination for world students. As well as Paris, in France there are many university cities such as Toulouse, Strasbourg, Montpellier, Bordeaux or Lyon. To sump up, there are : 83 schools, 230 business faculties, 250 engineering schools and many special colleges, including Art college.

Current plans for university reforms in France have as a background – sometimes explicitly, often unquestioningly – comparisons with education in the U. S.. However, the discourse about American schools seems too often marked by a series of misunderstandings that not only prevent the good understanding of the other side of the Atlantic as well as any research into the evils of French universities.

What can we compare for the 2 systems?

First, a question: what do we compare? In most cases, the comparison is the French public universities and the biggest U.S. Non-public schools. But this comparison can be deceptive. It ignores the many examples of American higher education, split between public and private research colleges ‘ liberal humanities colleges ” (which gives a degree in humanities and social sciences equivalent to BAC +4 in France) and” Community Colleges ” (BAC+2 rather popular). Indeed, as well as the major private research university known in France, each federal state also has a net of public universities, often of very good quality such as the University of California at Berkeley or the University of Wisconsin at Madison. But states that invest less in their universities also have smaller universities.

The money in query in the States system

Then there's the issue of resources and funding. Much is to give universities the means, but where the money comes from the U.S. ? For public universities, it comes first taxes in each state. Then the registration charge amount, in the case that Harvard isn't the most highly priced up to $ 47,215 with accommodation without health care insurance. Even a public university like the renowned University of Berkeley is $ 4,465.75 a year, without accommodation for students in California, amounting to $ 14,769.75, for those coming from outside. How does a student have to pay these high costs? Through a system of grants and loans that historically has one of the highest share of youngsters in the world to obtain an advanced degree, but leaving students largely indebted.

And universities, especially non-public, also have the famous “endowments” major non-taxable investment funds managed by universities, where about one 3rd of the funding in the case of Harvard, which has the biggest background and permits it to provide free education to modest students. These charges, and endowments, partially explain the comprehensive resources – libraries, well equipped labs, etc.. – All French analyst visiting the U. S. notes and envy this system.

Lots of subjects can be debated about the differences, but we have here a good first approach of the issue.

Sarah Johnson studied in Paris and Harvard, writes on internet about education, on the website Etudinfo as an example. You can find one of her article about the “formation bts tourisme“.

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