In an article written for Business Cool, the new Managing Director of Audencia discusses the impact of the massification of the bac+5, which has gradually become the norm in higher tertiary professions.
The baccalaureate is no longer just the ticket to higher education. But does the race for diplomas still give value to the bac+5, which has become the new standard? What is the new winning combination of qualifications to stand out when entering the job market?
The baccalaureate: from first diploma to passport for higher education
In a context of the advent of mass education and the formulation of the right to education throughout the world, public policies have favored the extension of higher education studies since the 1960s. The baccalaureate constitutes in particular the cornerstone of this desire for democratization of access to higher education via its numerous reforms which have all aimed at making it easier to obtain by an ever-increasing proportion of high school students. A figure illustrates this observation: the share of high school graduates in a generation increased from 25.9% in 1980 to 79.3% in 2023. In 1966, one in two young people failed their baccalaureate, currently failing the baccalaureate has become the ‘exception.
The baccalaureate has therefore lost its status as a “diploma” in the sense of the labor market, particularly with the increase in the qualifications required in a knowledge economy, a “tertiarisation” of activities and public policies aimed at extending studies. Through successive reforms, the baccalaureate has evolved into a sort of orientation compass with the combinations of options and specialties (see the recent debates around the mathematics specialty in the last reform). It is also a first quality signal for access to certain sectors, with the surge in mentions (the rate of “very good” mentions increased from 1% in 1997 to 14% in 2022), even if the Parcoursup platform has largely erased this effect since high school students have their higher education assignment results before their baccalaureate results.
Do higher education diplomas still have a market value?
The generalization of access to higher education is also explained by the fact that from one generation to the next, more and more parents have high educational cultural capital which they transmit to their children. Numerous studies have also shown that educational trajectories are also largely determined by social origins rather than gender or migratory ancestry, even if there is a debate in France around middle-class children. This democratization of access to higher education is part of Gary Becker’s theory of human capital in 1962, which postulates that education is an investment made by individuals to maximize their future wealth, since graduates are expected to receive higher pay. Other economists such as Kenneth Arrow and Michael Spence show that the diploma is a signal for employers who must guarantee that individuals have the skills required for a given job with a form of sorting previously carried out by educational institutions.
As a direct consequence, the baccalaureate, which once represented a first diploma recognized on the job market, has transformed into a passport for access to higher education. It also no longer constitutes a first filter for access to short and long studies in higher education, which has led to a lengthening of studies and a race for diplomas with the bac+5. Itself become, in short, a “new standard”. It is unlikely that in the European Bachelor Master Doctorate (LMD) scheme we will see a massive extension of studies at the doctorate level which adds 3 additional years with relatively little added value in companies in terms of recognition and remuneration. On the other hand, we can note the development of a phenomenon of “millefeuilles” of diplomas and certifications among young graduates.
The new “winning formula” in higher education
We are thus witnessing a strong trend in certain areas: the search for double degrees and stacking of professional certifications in order to strengthen the signal of the market value of individuals on the labor market. Since more and more graduates come from higher education, this graph on the optimal combination of diplomas and certifications shows that in certain sectors (management schools, engineering schools, etc.), individuals are still looking for a form tangible differentiation for employers. The search for short certifications is also explained by the significant development of short online formats (MOOCS in particular) and the entry of new, very agile players (LinkedIn Learning, Open Classrooms, etc.) offering a large catalog of training which is also financially accessible in certain cases.
Naturally, this escalation in the race for diplomas and certifications is also found in the vocational training sector, which is booming, and also boosted by the ever faster obsolescence of skills, particularly in a context marked by questions of ecological transitions. and social. The obsolescence of skills is also increasingly rapid with the development of certain innovations such as AI in certain professions. Objective: to train throughout life, to stand out in a world increasingly framed by quality markers: standards, labels… and diplomas!
