Yesterday I met with the directeur of development from a Grande Ecole.
rambling notes:
the Grandes Ecoles differ from French universities because they were created to offer a very applied curriculum when the universities were too theorical... Actually, the creation of Carnegie Mellon feels quite similar.
The Grandes Ecoles are either engineering schools focused on a theme such as bridges, communications, applied mathématics or business schools.
Those schools are VERY GOOD and very hard to get in, but often doesn' get ranked very high internationally because rankings often take into consideration research made there.
Those schools have trouble getting good professors since most of them are leaving for places where research is easier ans salaries are better, i.e. the U.S.
The schools receive money from the ministère they depend from and enrollement is free (for the engineering schools). They receive a little bit of money via a tax called taxe d'apprentissage. A business owner can decide which educational institution his tax should go too.
Recently, a new law passed saying that the people paying the ISF, the tax on wealth, could benefit from a tax break for giving money to a small company or to an educational institution. And this is one reason why the Grandes Ecoles in France are recruiting a lot of development people.
A funny fact is that, very few French people know the business (that's where I come in), and they end up recruiting a lot in Quebec in order to hire a francophone team.
Money is used mainly to retain faculty, but also to upgrade some buildings.
Alumni dababases are not kept by the school but by the associations which operate independently... yes it smells like trouble.
Schools used to think that their relationship with a student ended when giving him his diploma. Big mistake!
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