And these fortunes are not all from schools

Today, the rich, as Liliane Bettencourt, may participate in the financing of the University through foundations. The device is therefore reserved to the very rich. For the rest, the apprenticeship tax allows businesses, large or small, and not individuals, to pay money to the University of their choice.

And if one encouraged the more affluent to participate in the effort of university funding, subject to high tax deductions The tax treatment of these private investment would be thus assimilated to the tax treatment of donations to charities. The tax deduction would be little capped and the funds would be managed directly by each institution.

The United States provide us an example of Philanthropy at the service of education. The University takes advantage of the philanthropy of the richest Americans, Rockefeller in Carnegie to Gates and Buffett are always illustrated by their generosity. Consider the most emblematic case of Harvard Business School. Former students are very many to pay their school included amounts between $ 100 and more than $ 25 million! A total of $ 579 million have been made by former students for five years. 123 million of donations in 2005 alone: it is more than the total budget of the greatest French higher education institutions. And the strength of the budget of Harvard, to which the American authorities contribute nothing, reveals the handicaps of the French University.

Handicap 1: French University left to private firms the monopoly of training, a market of EUR 1.7 billion. American universities generate much of their resources through educational programs destined for experienced managers (23 of the revenues of Harvard). The employee will have to form throughout his life. Why the French University does captures not part of the value created by the important ongoing training market

Handicap 2: French University does not know its derived products, including in the field of publishing. Harvard generates more than 30 of its revenues through its magazine and his books published each year. Not to mention consumer products (t-shirts, caps, accessories, etc.). The Sorbonne is an internationally recognized brand. And former students are a single captive market in which universities could more contact through trade mark licence agreements.

Handicap 3: French University does not guarantee the donor a precise destination to their money. Doubt, a potential donor motivation decreases strongly when he does not know the final destination of his money. In the United States, each donation can be specifically dedicated to finance research work or the construction of a building (classroom, library, parties shared, etc.). At Harvard, 93 of alumni donations are dedicated to a specific cause. This is the case of scholarships for students with no significant resources that represent 20 of annual donations. Alumni give more because they know exactly where their money goes.

And when the French University will have more resources, it will make them grow. The amount of donations in the United States is immediately placed on the financial markets to generate interest reinvested in the curriculum and educational equipment. Harvard has accumulated more than 2 billion dollars of financial assets, placed on the markets through nearly 800 specialized funds. The capital is secure, allowing the school to enhance its capacity to borrow. More than 60 million dollars in annual interest come improve the budgetary resources of the school. These funds generate ten years greater than the average profitability annual profitability of the financial market.

If the conditions were met, there is no doubt that the richest French would choose this option to alleviate their tax load and at the same time perform a citizen action. But the philanthropy does not seem to value the better shared in France. As if a welfare state like ours, to the high rate of compulsory levies, limited the ability of its more affluent citizens to become a philanthropist. A former American student on 3 more give at Harvard every year. The French graduates of Harvard are 1 in 10, or 1 in 20 to give according to promotions.

In his last fundraising 13 alumni of Harvard gave more than 10 million each. The French authorities to allow French fortunes to contribute to the improvement of higher education. To the fortunes of French to follow in the footsteps of their American cousins. And these fortunes are not all from schools. At the State concentrate its assistance on the less privileged universities. And institutions best equipped with their opportunity to the best students of high schools in the area of priority education, to the image of the Sciences po has been successful so far.

The French University is sick. That ideology does not prevent it to find the road to recovery.