Private establishments have undertaken a network of the territory to capture a new generation of students, engaging considerable sums in stone.
by Eric Nunès
It was on the banks of the Seine in Suresnes (Hauts-de-Seine), a few minutes from Paris La Défense, that Skema Business School set its Ile-de-France campus. The building and its 1,500 square meters of terrace facing the lake of the Bois de Boulogne and the Tower of Gustave Eiffel. Students crossed in the glass and metal maze are suitable in a few words: “it’s beautiful”. “It is the Ferrari des Campus”, adds, satisfied, Allal, 23, student in a master 2 audit and management control. At the beginning of the 20th e century, the site wore the aeronautical factories of the industrialist Louis Blériot on its soil. Modern and sparkling, the case now welcomes 2,500 Ile -de -France students.
This construction of 15,000 square meters at 100 million euros – partially funded by a loan over twenty years – symbolizes the good health of business schools, underlined by a study published in October by CBRE, real estate consultancy group business. Marginal only a few years ago, the share of higher education today reaches 12 % of large real estate transactions (in business volume) in Ile-de-France and 30 % in the region.
It is the demography which explains this rise in power of the real estate projects of private higher education establishments. The strong French birth rate between 2000 and 2015 is reflected each year in significant students’ flows, a phenomenon which should extend until 2025, at least. If the university absorbs most of the new graduates, it is in private education that the increase is the strongest. In twenty years, student registrations in these establishments have doubled, while they have increased by only 17 % in public education. And since 2017, growth has been even faster, with hikes in the order of 7 % per year. The sector brought together 592,600 students at the start of the 2020 school year, according to data from Ministry of Higher Education .
a request that does not weaken
The rise of international mobility also involves a manna of new customers for schools. In 2020, there were more than 370,000 foreign students to choose a French establishment to continue their studies, an increase of 23 % in five years, according to Campus France . To accommodate this flow, “there is a growing need for buildings devoted to private education, with larger and modular sites to optimize space”, observes Thierry Molton, director of corporate real estate assets within the Real estate group La Française Real Estate Managers.
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