After “Roaring Twenties”, learning underwent budget restrictions.

From July 1, a financial participation is required for companies hiring apprentices who prepare a bac+or more diploma. This new planer stroke acts the end of five years of “whatever it costs” in terms of learning financing.

At EM Normandy, learning is no longer popular. Just installed in her new functions as director general, Anne-Sophie Cartier decided that it was time to backtrack. This business school was, like so many others, engulfed in the breach of learning: until then, 40% of its students carried out part of their training each year In the company of their choice, against remuneration. They will only be 25% can take advantage of this system by 2030.

In question, a labor market that is tense, combined with successive plansation on the financing of learning, making companies “more chilly to take an apprentice”, she analyzes. The last cup comes in application Tuesday July 1: a participation of 750 euros per contract is now required by companies hiring apprentices Preparing a Bac+3 or more level diploma. And that’s not all: now, the Level of remote training management will be reduced. Objective displayed for this new learning financing reform: to identify 450 to 500 million savings in 2025. In its 2025 budget, the government had already revised down the premium to hire apprentices. Of 6,000 euros for all businesses, the Aid amount increased to 5,000 euros for SMEs and 2,000 euros for larger companies.

The first repercussions of these measures were quick to be felt. “Students have more difficulty finding a contract this year, there are fewer offers, and companies are more demanding,” notes Anne-Sophie broker. This is confirmed in global figures: For the first time since 2018, the number of apprenticeship entries fell at the start of the year: -14% of new contracts in January 2025, compared to the same period in 2024, according to figures from the Directorate of research, studies and statistics animation (DARES).

“We have the chic in France to break what works”, Takes Eric Chevée, vice-president of the Confederation of Small and Medium Enterprises (CPME), joined by Franceinfo. “We have lost the sense of priorities and we now reach the rocking point. I say that what’s going on is very dangerous,” he wishes to warn.

This return of the stick comes after there is a splendor for learning. In 2018, a major reform of the financing system, then Exceptional aid for hiring decided during the COVVI-19 crisis for young people, had given spectacular results. Until upsetting deeply the landscape of higher education: from 321,000 in 2018, the number of new apprentices A year went to 852,000 in 2023, close to the target of one million set by Emmanuel Macron. A period qualified as“Roaring Twenties” learning by economist Bruno CoquetExpert associated with L ‘French Observatory for Economic Conditions (OFCE). The objective of the Head of State “has become a form of totem”he analyzes. “For several years, there was a firm refusal of successive governments to control the expenses related to learning.”

But for more than a year, this position of principle has been caught by budgetary realities, France’s deficit which reached 5.8% of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2024. A critical situation that made “Getting aware that learning costs too expensive compared to its effectiveness “, Bruno Coquet analysis. In 2023, the State devoted the colossal sum of 16.5 billion euros for work -study (including learning and professionalization contracts), including 7.5 billion brought by the budget and 8.7 billion per France skills, according to The report of the Court of Auditors. For comparison, the budget of the Ministry of Higher Education And research is 26.7 billion euros this year. An unexpected windfall for an entire sector.

“It was, so far, ‘Open Bar’ for apprentices, employers and schools. We are now witnessing, not a brutal brake stroke, but at the beginning of return to reason.”

Bruno Coquet, economist

in franceinfo

This public policy was also not sufficiently targeted: according to A report by the General Inspectorate of Finance (IGF) and the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs (IGAS) In 2024, windfall effects appeared. Some companies have benefited from aid from the State when they would have hired work -study students even without these systems.

Another side effect regularly denounced by researchers and professionals in the sector: the development of a “Real system of dependence on public finance”, In the words of Mathis d’Aquino, researcher to Sciences Po Bordeaux working on the theme of the privatization of higher education. Private training has been created specially to take advantage of these aids, Sometimes in defiance of the quality of the education offered. In part of these courses that are not looking at on the contracts signed, the apprentice was thus used as a low-cost workforce. “Reception companies have found a way to replace tasks formerly accomplished by an employee, taking alternating”, Cohe still does he.

Due to this concentration of the system in higher education, learning has mainly developed in the tertiary sector. Therefore, “The emphasis has not been put on strategic training on which there are real shortages of labor”, still notes Christine Erhel. In secondary education, 70% of contracts come well from the production sector, but the latter “Understand very little”, according to The Court of Auditors.

There is no question of throwing the baby with bath water, for the job market specialist. Learning has also enabled thousands of young people to finance Private training so far accessible only by a student loan or through very expensive family solidarity. “It had the merit of becoming the mode of financing thousands of young people”, argues the economist, who affirms it: rather than a measure For employment, learning will rather have been a measure of financing higher education.