If the Covid-19 page has finally been turned (or almost turned) for students in France, this does not mean that things are going well for them. This is essentially what the latest note from the Observatory of Student Life, published at the beginning of September, explains. Entitled “The crisis in the rearview mirror?”, it includes part of the results of its survey “Student living conditions” carried out in 2023 among 260,000 young people.
“The health crisis helped to reveal the living conditions of students, which were severely disrupted for many months. But in the end it did not transform them in the long term.”sums up Fanny Bugeja-Bloch, sociologist and president of the Observatory’s scientific faculty. This is the case of the economic precariousness of students, which is more or less returning to pre-crisis levels, with 26% of students reporting significant or very significant difficulties, compared to 23% in 2016.
“The stability of the phenomenon shows that this precariousness is, therefore, structural, comments the researcher. The most vulnerable students are always the same…” We meet first of all students of foreign nationality, but also scholarship students, as well as those who work in parallel to their studies for whom “the stock market or work income is generally insufficient to cover [tous] needs “, the authors of the study explain.
Degraded housing conditions
It should be noted that, after experiencing a sharp decline during the health crisis, the percentage of students with jobs has again reached and even exceeded the pre-Covid-19 level (44% of them will be working in 2023, compared to 40% previously). The study shows that students who do not live with their parents are also more affected by insecurity. However, the cohabitation of parents, which research shows to be “offers protection against precariousness”, and which had skyrocketed during the crisis, now only affects a third of the student population (as in 2016).
The study points out that, given the lack of university accommodation (only 7% of students live in a Crous residence), the use of private housing is massive. Among the main difficulties that students encounter when using it are the “cost of housing”HE “lack of space” and the “Unhealthy problems” ; so many poor housing conditions probably have an effect on their academic success.
“The health sector remains where the effects of the crisis are still noticeable”Fanny Bugeja-Bloch points out. While 30% of students showed signs of psychological distress before the crisis, this rate rose to 43% in 2021 under the influence of successive lockdowns and school closures. In 2023, this figure will still be 36%. This fragility once again affects the most disadvantaged students, those of foreign nationality, but also women more than men.
