From the terrace, you overlook all of Paris. The Eiffel Tower, the Sacré-Coeur perched on its hill. “The perfect selfie spot for our Chinese students! », lance, construction helmet screwed on the head, Elian Pilvin, the director of the EM Normandie. In a few days, this business school will inaugurate its new campus in Clichy-la-Garenne (Hauts-de-Seine). And she pulled out all the stops: a new eight-storey building (14,000 square meters) signed by Jean-Michel Wilmotte’s agency, with six green terraces and an interior garden, large bay windows, dozens of equipped rooms videoconferencing technologies.
The campus, located in this district full of head offices (Etam, L’Oréal or Amazon France are right next door), will welcome 3,000 students at the start of the school year. The lease signed with the promoter GDG is planned for twelve years: it is better to have strong backs. But this business school, created at the end of the 19th centuryand century by merchants from Le Havre, does not see why it should not continue its momentum. Grow, always more: in 2011, its annual budget was 20 million euros; this year, it is counting on 65 million.
A surge driven mainly by the explosion in its numbers, which now reach 5,800 students, divided between Le Havre, Caen and Paris – not counting its international students, who number 1,000 this year. This fall, while universities are tightening their belts, EM Normandie has announced that it has recruited… 32 permanent teacher-researchers over the past eighteen months. Among them, a good number of young doctors in management, who land there for lack of a permanent job prospect at the university.
The growth of this business school reflects the booming private higher education sector in France. In twenty years, student enrollment in these establishments has doubled, while it has only increased by 17% in public education. And since 2017, growth has been even faster, with staff increases of around 7% per year. The sector brought together 592,600 students at the start of the 2020 school year, according to data from the Ministry of Higher Education, or 21% of the student population. On Parcoursup, in 2022, nearly 5,000 post-baccalaureate courses are offered by private establishments – and others recruit outside the platform.
Extensions throughout France
Throughout France, announcements of extension or opening of campuses are multiplying. Schools located in the regions are opening sites in Paris, such as Neoma, resulting from the merger of Sup de Co de Rouen and Reims, which has just purchased a 6,500 square meter building in the 13and capital district.
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