French towns experiment minimum income for students
The top-up is aimed at pulling students out of poverty
The funding helps students focus on their studies
Matej Kastelic / Shutterstock
Several towns in France are experimenting with a ‘minimum income’ for higher education students, to help tackle student poverty and boost local economies.
The scheme sees students who fulfil criteria – such as being enrolled in higher education, within a certain age range, and living in the town for a certain period of time – able to receive a monthly bursary from local authorities.
The bursary is known as a revenu minimum étudiant (RME) and can reach up to €4,000 per-year in some areas.
Its aim is to help top up the income students have available to them, preventing them from living in poverty, as well as requiring them to work fewer hours at part-time jobs and focus more on studying.
Unlike bursaries and scholarships, the scheme is available to any student fulfilling the criteria, allowing middle-class students who fall through the funding net to apply also.
Towns including Chenôve (Côte-d’Or), Dunkirk (Nord), Gravelines (Nord), Plougastel (Finistère), as well as smaller local communes, have all set up RME-style schemes.
Communes using the schemes are run by parties from across the political spectrum, however it is mostly left-wing councils who have set them up so far.
Some students must volunteer to receive funding
“Two years ago [due to financial issues resulting from the Covid pandemic], we set up a minimum income for the elderly, which is working well,” said Charlotte Goujon, the mayor of Petit-Quevilly (Seine-Maritime) to Le Monde.
“We thought we should offer the same thing to students,” she added. The town voted to launch an RME this summer, and it began this academic year in September.
In the town, students can receive up to €100 per month through the scheme, depending on their financial situation.
Petit-Quevilly is one of the communes that hands the funding out to all eligible applicants.
In some other communes students must offer something to the community in return. In Berre-l’Etang (Bouches-du-Rhône), for example, they must volunteer for three days in the year.
Grande-Synthe in the Nord department said its annual budget for the scheme is €187,624, with students receiving on average just under €1,000 each per year.
Calls for a ‘study allowance’
Student federations and university leaders claim that current scholarship funds are not enough, and that increasing numbers of students are falling into poverty as living costs increase.
Read more: Inscription, fees, rent: the average cost of university in France
The RME is a local solution, but unions have begun to call for a ‘study allowance’ that would cover all student living expenses, allowing them to focus solely on studying instead of working.
The motion is backed by 14 French universities which wrote in favour of its introduction in 2023.
A study allowance “would make it possible to reduce socio-economic inequalities as well as the effects of family breakdowns, thereby promoting access to higher education and social cohesion,” they said.
