"Middle-class students are the most overlooked of state aid"

Joseph Gallard is vice-president of the “right tomorrow” circle of thought, and a student in Political Science, but also a former member of the board of directors of the Côte-d'Azur University.

The middle class students are once again sacrificed on the altar of egalitarianism. Édouard Philippe announced recently the release of a € 200 envelope, planned for the end of June, following the Covid-19 crisis. Initially, students who lost their internship or their job were affected by this assistance. The Prime Minister remaining elusive on the conditions for granting aid in a second part, it turns out that you have to be under 25, have no job, and according to the mail from CAF, "n ' not be a student. " It can be specified that ultra-marine students also have the right to this aid if they have been stranded in mainland France.

Unequal access to aid

Once again, the middle classes have no right to any help, and yet it is they who have been most strongly impacted by the Covid-19. Both economic and social impact. Some students will never benefit from CROUS services, we can speak of BTS or IUT students located in medium and small towns, even villages, and who therefore have no university restaurants, no student accommodation, knowing that the the only concrete service to which a middle class student is entitled is that of a meal in the UK at half price.

The problem is that aid has not changed paradigm. We are still in a system without graduated aid, but in stages. Either you are beneficiaries and you have the right to many aids (accommodation, catering, scholarship, no registration fees), or you are not and you have to pay the full price. The problem is that a student who must have no income to support himself, whether he is grade 0 or non-scholarship holder for € 1, or even non-scholarship student, will in any case be very precarious. When we dare to take 5 € of APL from students, it's practically two additional meals to pay per month, almost 20 meals a year. The current system of scholarships is totally outdated, a large working meeting must be organized in order to redefine a viable strategy, in tune with the times. Aid should be linearized, as proposed by the student union of the Union Nationale Interuniversitaire (UNI) so that each student receives aid according to what he must receive, which would avoid the terrible threshold effect.

Finally, it would also be interesting to open the scholarships to middle-class students, who, for the most part, subsist thanks to the 170 € of APL provided by CAF, the parents being unable for a large number not to pay the full amount. rents, excessive in large student cities. Especially since the scholarship fraud represents according to the Student Figaro nearly 100 million losses, or 20,000 fraudsters, which could largely finance the scholarships of middle class students. The middle classes can no longer travel to Paris. The prices are unaffordable for people who have to pay all the expenses. Even with a job, it is not enough.

The merits of the middle classes are still not valued

It is also disturbing in our aid system that the “merit scholarship” which rewarded students from disadvantaged backgrounds, having obtained a “very good” grade in the baccalaureate, was abolished while it rewarded a financial supplement these deserving students. In a Republic, the social elevator must function, if it does not reward the best elements, does not unearth the elites of tomorrow, then it is not a Republic. We no longer reward excellence, we level it down, and it's a tragedy.

This aid should be opened to middle-class students who admirably succeed in their studies, but who cannot access the highest positions, the highest studies, the grandes écoles. It is now difficult to enter these schools when one is too rich to enter through the gateways and too poor to enter by way of file selection. The entry reform at Sciences Po will accentuate this gap, insofar as the files of towns and villages in provinces, of lycées less "sides" will be less put forward by recruiters, while the files of students of lycées private, they will be more interesting, and the good files of ZEP will be acclaimed to fill the quotas, which it should be remembered, are totally out of step with the principle of equality promoted by our Fifth Republic.

To this must be added the impoverishment and the net indebtedness of the middle classes, which are the foundation of our system. Nicolas Sarkozy said it in his time, the middle classes are "too rich to be poor, too poor to be rich" , it is a disparate social body, with many people living very well, but a large part, revealed by yellow vests, are no longer doing so due to the increase in the cost of living (appearance of internet packages and other multimedia items) as well as the continuous rise in taxes. What is worrying is that it never benefits from the redistribution of wealth; the case of student aid is a sad observation. It suffices to read Louis Chauvel's interview at Le Figaro Vox to see that the middle class in France is not properly supported by successive governments.

We must redefine a vision of our stock market system, to allow us to finally stick to today's realities. Whether you are ultra-marine or 300 km distant from your parents, the expenses are the same, the precarious conditions also. Our policies must seize the problems of precariousness with a pragmatism of rigor, while leaving the egalitarian ideology post-sixty-eightard, to set up effective public policies, which cost us less but help us concretely. Finally, Frédérique Vidal, Minister of Higher Education and Research, to subscribers absent during the crisis, had split a statement on Twitter, in which she assured working on the establishment of a catering ticket , it is high time to implement this measure. Indeed, a ticket worth € 7 would be funded, half by the student, the other by the CROUS, allowing him to do his shopping and use it for his meals. UK timetables are out of step with course schedules, and BTS or IUT students do not always have university restaurants. A measure long proposed by UNI, mocked by FAGE and UNEF, but which would already reduce a little more inequalities in the allocation of aid.