Sarkozy’s Sorbonne Reforms

Newly elected President Nicolas Sarkozy’s seriousness about modernizing France’s competitiveness is demonstrated in taking on the sacred cow of French higher education. His efforts will surely lead to front-page photos of demonstrating students. His efforts should, also, be closely watched by Americans who are interested in the quality of our higher education.

The Associated Press reports to “recapture its economic luster and key role in international affairs” campuses are “shaping up as the first battleground for Sarkozy's grand plans for reform.”

High dropout rates, antiquated resources and funding cuts have so plagued the Sorbonne , like universities across France , that its president, Jean-Robert Pitte, is calling for an overhaul of the university system. He wants to make admission selective and sharply increase tuition, measures critics call "Americanization."

French universities "don't correspond to the needs of the economy, to French society, and even less to Europe and the world," Pitte said in an interview. "I'm pragmatic. I watch what happens elsewhere, and I'm for borrowing what works best."…

The challenges start with egalitarian rules that govern French universities. Imposed after the student and worker uprising of 1968, they offer any student with a high school diploma a free education. Financial barriers were to be leveled with generous grants.

Nearly 40 years later, the free and democratic universities are producing far fewer graduates than their much more costly counterparts in the United States. In 2005, 14 percent of adults had a university education in France, compared to 29 percent in the United States, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

[Sorbonne president] Pitte says the French system just produces dropouts. Forty-five percent of Sorbonne students do not complete their first year, and 55 percent do not earn a degrees. Without entrance standards, there is a "selection-by-failure" that squanders resources and professors' time on students who "have no real chance of success," he said.

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Pitte wants to limit the numbers of students in disciplines that have few job opportunities upon graduation, and introduce annual tuition fees of $4,000.

"Nobody should be prevented from doing university studies," said Pitte. But to let students who aren't cut out for it into the system "is criminal."

Funding to public universities would increase by 50%.

Several experts in higher education I consulted could not point me at a compilation of core curriculums and of “multicultural,” or basket-weaving courses in American colleges. I wrote about the decreasing returns from increased investments in higher education, saying:

The cure for higher education lays in elimination and avoidance of useless majors and academics, the revolt of taxpayers and parents, and continuation of present trends which place a compensation worth on academics that will decline more compared to other occupations.

Maybe, France will lead the way.