In the absence of a local or space in the targeted training, some must move to continue their studies. This constraint, which is not always well experienced, also testifies to the unequal attractiveness of universities.
by tiphaine thuillier
When he applied for a master’s place last summer, Raphaël Hernout, 22, crossed his fingers to stay in Amiens, the city where he had just completed his biology license. The city where he had “all [his] life”. The young man had drawn up a very long list of wishes to multiply his chances. But only two options resulted: one in Strasbourg, the other in Bordeaux. No matter how lucky he is not to have found himself empty -handed, the prospect of living in one or the other of these cities has hardly enthusiastic. “I did not know anyone there,” he slips. Even Paris, I would have preferred, because my aunt and my uncle live on the spot and I have landmarks. There, it was the unknown. ”
Without conviction, he heads for the prefecture of Gironde to follow a master’s degree “nutrition and food science at the University of Bordeaux. The student had time to organize and visit accommodation in early July: he was able to find a furnished rent apartment of 420 euros per month. “It’s a pretty city but it’s horribly expensive,” he laments. He often thinks back, and with nostalgia, at the small Amiens house he occupied with a comrade last year: “For the same price, we had more room and a small garden.”
How many are there, like Raphaël Hernout, to follow their university course in a city they have not chosen? Difficult to say, since there are no figures on the geographic mobility of students or qualitative data on the voluntary or constraint dimension of these trips. However, at each return, the tension on certain masters and the difficulties in obtaining a place grow young people to move.
Calibration problem
The number of licensees has progressed faster than that of master’s availability, access to the higher level is more and more complex. At the entrance of certain sectors, such as law, psychology or economics, it is traffic jam. As a result, so as not to find themselves without anything, some students settled hundreds of kilometers from their home. “There are obviously more possibilities when you are very mobile, but that is not the ideal solution to solve the problem of lack of places”, recognizes Guillaume Géllé, president of France Universités.
Félix Bodoulé Sosso, spokesperson for the Federation of General Student Associations (FAGE), knows lots of stories similar to that of Raphaël. “Many students in our network are affected by this mobility, he says. There are less attractive masters than others and cities with more available places.” For Pascal Lecroart, vice-president in charge of training And from university life to the University of Bordeaux, it should still be remembered that “mobility is in the DNA of the Master, because the routes are not the same from one establishment to another”.
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