A record number of high school graduates, more high school students on the starting line, sanitary rules in the face of the Covid-19 epidemic which are still uncertain … perilous. The results of the Parcoursup higher education admission platform, which closed its main phase on Friday 17 July, have confirmed this. With a question: how to find room for all these young people?
As of July 17, they are nearly 585,000 graduates to have obtained a proposal for admission to a course – or 88.2% of those registered. A proportion similar to that of 2019, welcomed by the Minister of Higher Education, Frédérique Vidal. However, other lights are red. According to our calculations from the daily dashboard published on Parcoursup, 91,300 baccalaureate holders and students in reorientation remain without a proposal, compared to 58,700 at the same period last year. This pressure is concentrated among the graduates: there are 52,400 without a proposal, compared to 32,700 in July 2019.
A major challenge
Among them, 9,500 requested the help of a district commission to find a place, compared to 6,400 in 2019. This is the figure that the Minister of Higher Education reports today. “Since July 8, we are calling all those who have no proposal”, she explained on Franceinfo on July 17. Some 7,500 courses still have vacant places on Parcoursup, accessible in the complementary phase. “There will be a solution for each of them, a promis Mme Vidal. Everyone has a place at the start of the new school year, that’s the ambition of the whole government (…) in this very complicated year. “
The challenge is significant, because the influx appears historic. First, there is a demographic increase: 20,000 additional high school students confirmed, in the spring, wishes for guidance on Parcoursup – half of them from the professional route. So much for the predictable part of the equation.
What no one anticipated is an unprecedented baccalaureate success rate, jostled by the health crisis. Almost 96% of the candidates indeed obtained this sesame towards the higher, without passing final tests but on the only faith of the marks of the past school year, that is to say 48,000 baccalauréat holders more. If not all knock on the doors of universities, some of them will. All the more so with the looming economic crisis, making it difficult to enter the job market immediately.
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