International and domestic students currently pay the same fees as domestic students, and boosting non-EU fees to an average of €11,101 could raise an estimated €850m, claims the report, Investir dans l’Internationalisation de l’Enseignement Supérieur (Investing in the Internationalisation of Higher Education).

“Budgetary resources, the teacher workforce, and the same equipment will not be enough, especially as the expectations of these mobile students will only increase”

The report outlines a need for France to respond to the challenges of internationalisation, including digital innovation, in order to remain globally competitive and to accommodate an estimated 200,000 more international students coming into the country over the next decade.

However, the report charges that a rise must not serve as an excuse to cut public funding. Instead, the new found finances must be reinvested to improve the quality and attractiveness of French education in order to counter any potential fallout from the increase.

A lack of trained staff and strategy within individual higher education institutions is one key barrier to internationalisation identified in the report, as is the tradition of operating “on a practically exclusively national basis and, in France, mostly as a public service”, which has led to a lack of resources.

“[The current] budgetary resources, the teacher workforce, and the same equipment will not be enough, especially as the expectations of these mobile students will only increase,” it argues. “Whether the educational service itself or the conditions of student life, progress is essential if we are to remain attractive.”

“It would be difficult to estimate the loss of students should a fee be levied but undoubtedly that would impact quite substantially on the numbers of students who come to France for higher education, as it has for other countries making similar changes,” Tim Gore, CEO of the University of London Institute in Paris, told The PIE News.

The report highlights the need to counteract this impact, noting that students may demand more of their study experience if they are paying more for it.

It lays out a five-year funding plan to boost the offering and profile of French education internationally, including an annual €50m to export French programmes and institutions abroad and a further €2.5m to develop a dedicated unit to promote French transnational education.

An additional €70m a year would be spent on enhancing France’s digital education offering which the report notes is lacking.

It highlights France’s poll position in MOOC development, particularly, noting that while the number of MOOCs on offer worldwide has grown from less than 500 in Spring 2013 to more than 3,000 in Summer 2014, only 88 were created by French universities.

This, despite Geneviève Fioraso, Minister of Higher Education, saying last year that there here was a need for France to “catch up” to the rest of the world when it came to offering online courses.

“Progress is essential if we are to remain attractive”

The third part of the five-year plan is to develop a targeted policy to recruit students from key countries to propel France in leading non-Anglophone destinations in popularity, at an annual cost of €7.5m.

France is “well positioned” to benefit from the rapidly changing landscape of international education, thanks to its reputation for high quality education and STEM excellence, as well as the popularity of studying in the global North, it argues.

However, it warns that “This advantage is likely to be temporary because the competition from emerging countries is increasing: ‘educational hubs’ in the Middle East and Asia capture more and more growing regional demand.”

“This is a very useful report with a good analysis of the current status of internationalisation of French higher education,” commented Gore at ULIP. “It notes the position of strength in many respects that France already has but also the challenges, of which funding is one.”