Enseignement supérieur et emploi: sur-investissement éducatif?

Abstract

After United States, Europeans countries have entered into a period of mass higher education.This phenomenon began in France in the sixties. Since, it has been growing more and more: nowadays, nearly fifty per cent of young people are studying in the higher educationnal system; they were only twenty per cent fifteen years ago. For the future, this trend should keep on up to the end of the century. In such a context, one of the most important question is: will this future high-qualified manpower find a job, and if so, which job? If one could be still optimistic as concerns the situation of the graduates on the labor market four or five years ago, it is no more the same today: diplomas do not prevent any more from unemployment or low-paid jobs. Some economists say that individuals and society invest too much in higher education: as a consequence investments in human capital yields lower rates of return. If one see the problem from an economical point of view, Government should try to limit the output of the higher educationnal system. But from a political point of view the problem is more difficult to solve because the efficiency of the scolar system cannot be assessed only from the labor market side but also from the social side i.e. keeping the social peace by satisfying demand for education.