“These particular enrolment arrangements are at the intersection of three distinct intentions. Firstly, the desire to welcome, as of right, employees: those who were pursuing a professional career, as well as those who were working to support themselves but who hoped to change jobs through their studies. In 1978, these employees represented 46% of students of French nationality, to which must be added 23% of part-time workers. Foreigners with a visa for studies do not generally take the risk of declaring themselves as workers and we therefore have no reliable statistical data.
The second intention concerned more specifically the reception of non-baccalaureate holders and reflected the desire to repair the selection made by the school system. The number of non-baccalaureate holders was approximately 10% in the first year[2], they corresponded to 34% of the student population in 1977. (...)
The third aspect was the more traditional one of democratisation and therefore access for working class students. On this last point. Vincennes did not differ much from all the other universities. (...). Vincennes was never the university of the working class, even though a close reading shows that the enrolment rate of children from the lowest categories was almost 20% higher than the national average.” (Berger, Courtois, and Perrigault 2015, 195-6).
