How are you, students? Concern for the well-being of young people pursuing higher education has grown since the health crisis. Images of long queues for food distributions and the isolation that many students witnessed during lockdowns have indeed exacerbated collective sensitivity towards a population already marked by significant precariousness before Covid.
And the news is not very good for this 2023 back-to-school season. According to the Federation of General Student Associations (Fage), the cost of the back-to-school season has increased by 2.79%. Not only is the cost of living (rent, food, leisure) increasing, but registration fees are also increasing after four years of freezing.
The amount of the scholarships has been frozen for 2024-2025, pending a major reform of the system, announced for the next academic year – but that was before the dissolution… Beyond the strictly financial dimension, the student population is experiencing a erosion of the protections and supports it benefits from to face various risks and insecurities. This vulnerability is neither permanent nor widespread, but seems to be progressing.
This is in any case what two local surveys indicate, the results of which are published in the latest issue of the journal. Vulnerable populationsBoth are based on the development of a “vulnerability score” which translates into points the different material, physical or psychological difficulties that students say they encounter (one point if a “feeling of isolation” is expressed, two if there has been a renunciation of care for financial reasons, for example).
Increased vulnerability
According to the first of these surveys, conducted among Rennes students, 32.5% of them were in a vulnerable situation in 2021 (score greater than or equal to 3 on a scale of 12), compared to only 21.5% in 2017.
“This sharp increase is probably explained by the effects of the health crisis, since the proportion of students feeling in poor psychological or physical health and often feeling alone has almost tripled”the authors note.
In Amiens, Joaven Launay, a sociology researcher, estimates the proportion of vulnerable students (score of 2 or 3 on a scale of 9) at 22% in 2022-2023, an increase of 6% compared to 2008-2009. He also shows that the structure of the financial support students receive has changed.
Direct family assistance (cash transfers) has become widespread, benefiting 83% of students surveyed compared to 58% 14 years earlier, with a median amount that has doubled (300 euros compared to 150). The share of the population receiving scholarships, on the other hand, has stagnated, and the average amount of aid has fallen (-86 euros).
The evolution of student work, finally, is paradoxical: less frequent (28% of students surveyed work in 2022-2023, compared to 40% in 2008-2009), it seems more and more essential to those who do it: “In 2011, two thirds (68%) of them only had occasional activity, compared to half in 2022 (53%)”noted the researcher.
“The evolution of the protections available to students·For the past 15 years, it has been characterized by increasingly extensive and substantial family support, in opposition to weakened social assistance and commercial strategies (work, loans) limited to a small proportion of students.·“It is for this reason that these are essential for living”he sums up.
Joaven Launay also recalls that the eminently familial character of the French system “is perfectly illustrated by the fact that scholarships are still awarded today on the basis of the parents’ taxable income”.
Being from a working class background, foreign, elderly and not living in a new home are the four factors that have the greatest impact on the risk of vulnerability.
This increased vulnerability obviously does not concern all students. Being from a working-class background, foreign, elderly and moving out are, according to Xavier Collet and Nathalie Beaupère, authors of the Rennes study, the four factors that have the greatest impact on the risk of vulnerability.
“While in 2017 no significant difference was observed, in 2021, a scholarship student has almost 40% more risk of being deferred for end-of-year exams than others”they detail.
The price of precariousness
Similarly, the public waiting in lines for food aid is relatively targeted. The survey that Lorraine Guéné and Ysé Bedo conducted among 477 students present in these lines in the Ile-de-France region highlights the clear predominance of foreign students, particularly those who have recently arrived. The latter frequently combine housing difficulties and administrative hassles concerning their residence permit and related rights (health, work).
Other foreign students, more “settled”, also resort to food aid at a time when financial aid from their family dries up and they have to find other resources. A final group is made up of French people, often moving out and often on scholarships, who have experienced episodes of financial “hardship” in the family in the past (power cuts, emergency accommodation, etc.).
For the students concerned, food distributions are “a resource integrated into their lifestyle and their tight budget management”
Far from any miserabilism, however, Lorraine Guéné and Ysé Bedo conclude that food distributions are for the students concerned “a resource integrated into their lifestyle and their tight budget management”. “Get-together mode” among others, they resort to it punctually in transition phases, typically when family support dries up or is no longer sufficient and the new resources – essentially work – are not yet in place.
The fact remains that this precariousness is paid for, particularly in terms of mental health. In the Rennes survey, the proportion of students declaring “often feel alone” Or “feeling psychologically unhealthy” more than doubled between 2017 and 2021.
Another study shows that the frequency of suicide attempts and suicidal thoughts soars in statistical categories grouping people affected by at least three dimensions of precariousness (renunciation of care, financial difficulties, etc.). These are often women, foreigners or people with disabilities, from disadvantaged backgrounds.
The “psychiatric check” obstacle course
The government, aware of this deterioration, had set up “psychiatric checks” in 2021 which allowed students to benefit from free consultations with a private psychologist. However, the system was little used. According to sociologists Adrien Delespierre, Patrick Peretti-Watel and Pierre Verger, who looked into the issue, this is firstly because the system, which was poorly understood, was part of the “obstacle course”.
First, you had to make an appointment with overwhelmed university health services, or with your general practitioner. Even though part of the student population is far removed from the health system: in 2023, 39% of students from working-class backgrounds and 57% from foreign backgrounds had given up on care for financial reasons, according to the Observatory of Student Life (OVE).
It was then necessary to find a contracted psychologist, but there were extremely few of them, particularly because of the low amount reimbursed (30 euros). Finally, only three consultations maximum were covered, which did not allow for long-term follow-up.
Above all, since it was the students themselves who had to assess whether or not their situation justified recourse to a mental health professional, “This type of system allowed the injunction not to consult in an “abusive” manner and not to take the place of other patients with more serious problems to come into full play.”.
“This injunction seemed particularly strong in the working classes where it had the effect of stigmatizing “welfare recipients” and “social cases”, who were suspected of “letting themselves go” and “over-consuming” the medical services covered by Social Security.”the authors recall.
Long-lasting effects on psychological distress
As has been observed in the context of food distributions, part of the non-use of the psychological check can therefore be explained by the concern of not taking the place of someone who would “really need” it.
More generally, the researchers believe, the fundamental problem with psychiatric checks is that they “aim to reformulate through an exclusively medical prism a whole series of social and political problems such as the growing impoverishment of the student population, the toughening of academic competition organized throughout the curriculum, or even the endless deterioration of the future prospects promised to many young people”.
“Students are organizing their budget differently by reducing certain essential expenses,” Observatory of Student Life
In short, as the Student Life Observatory summarizes, “Precarious situations are important” without their number having exploded following the health crisis, but the organization puts forward two explanations:
“Students are organizing their budgets differently by reducing certain essential expenses (clothing, food or health) to cope with the increase in their fixed and incompressible costs (rent, water, electricity, etc.). [Par ailleurs,] the amounts of public aid and that of parental aid have increased for those who actually benefit from them.
On the other hand, it is in the health sector that “The effects of the health crisis are the most lasting”with a greater number of students showing symptoms of psychological distress since the crisis, “but, again, with notable differences depending on the economic and social resources of the students”.
