What France's university admissions platform doesn't tell students

Thoughts from a Global Citizen, edition 4. What France's university admissions platform doesn't tell students.

First, what is Parcoursup?

If you didn't grow up in France, the name probably means nothing to you. Yet it shapes the future of almost every French teenager.

Parcoursup is France's national online platform for applying to higher education. Every year, around a million candidates use it: final-year high school students, but also students who want to change course. Think of it as the French equivalent of UCAS in the UK.

Students list their choices between January and March. From June, universities and schools send their answers through the platform: yes, no, or waiting list.

It also concerns French students abroad: those enrolled in the French high schools of Dubai, Singapore or London apply through the very same platform.

And in October 2026, it became a national crisis, with high school students protesting in the streets.

On Monday, Parcoursup was sentenced.

On Monday 26 October, French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu announced that Parcoursup will be replaced in 2028.

For 2027, the platform stays. Programmes will simply have to explain their rejections.

For 2028, a committee of students, teachers and ministers is due to report by the end of November.

Since then, everyone has been debating the platform: its bugs, its opacity, the stress it causes.

Almost nobody is talking about what lies at the end of it: jobs.

An AI trained on the past.

Among the government's ideas for 2028, one caught my attention. France's Ministry of Education states it in black and white: a new career guidance tool enhanced by artificial intelligence, "which will rely on the results of previous admission rounds".

In other words, an AI that would learn who was admitted where in past years. To guide students towards jobs that AI itself is transforming.

We are about to steer young people towards the future while looking in the rear-view mirror.

What the programme page doesn't say.

Open any programme page on Parcoursup. You'll find the admission rate, the expected profile, the career outcomes.

You will find nothing about the future of those careers.

Nothing about whether the target job is being transformed by AI. Nothing about the chances of being hired there as a beginner in five years.

Yet a student who chooses a programme in 2027 will be a beginner in 2030 or 2032.

And students aren't waiting: 61% of young people already use AI for their study and career choices, according to a French survey by Diplomeo. With no official answer, they ask ChatGPT.

Entry-level jobs, the first to go.

Researchers at Stanford followed the payroll records of millions of American workers since November 2022, the month ChatGPT came out. They compared two groups of 22 to 25-year-olds: those working in jobs highly exposed to AI, such as software development or customer service, and those working in jobs with little exposure.

The result: in exposed jobs, employment of young workers fell by about 11%. In the others, it rose by about 10%.

Among experienced workers, no such gap.

Jobs aren't disappearing. Companies are hiring fewer beginners. This is the United States, but nothing suggests Europe will be spared.

French essayist and entrepreneur Laurent Alexandre goes further in his book Ne faites plus d'études ("Stop studying"). According to him, companies no longer have an interest in training their employees: "Training someone in a skill where AI is about to excel is throwing money out of the window."

He's talking about companies. But the sentence applies just as well to a student choosing a degree.

And his conclusion is blunt: "For young people, this is not good news. They are being let down on all sides."

What I propose.

A simple idea: on every programme page, show how exposed to AI the jobs it leads to are.

The data already exists: The International Labour Organization publishes an index of each occupation's exposure to generative AI, updated in 2025. France Travail, the French public employment service, publishes hiring needs every year, occupation by occupation.

Cross-referencing them, programme by programme, is not science fiction. It's work on public data.

The goal is not to discourage anyone. The ILO itself points out that being exposed to AI does not mean disappearing. Most jobs will be transformed, not eliminated.

The goal is for every student to choose with their eyes open. And for their education to prepare them to work with AI.

Some will say these forecasts can be wrong. No doubt. That's why they shouldn't be set in stone: AI is moving so fast that this indicator should be updated every quarter, or every six months at the very least. It's something to watch constantly, not a label stuck on once and for all.

But today, students get no information at all. Between a sourced estimate and silence, I choose the estimate.

And the lesson applies to students too. As Laurent Alexandre puts it: "In a world where knowledge goes off faster than a yoghurt, the only winning strategy is to become a lifelong learner."

I'm not neutral: for more than nine years, my job has been to support students and families with their schooling and their study choices. That's precisely why I'm sounding the alarm.

And this goes far beyond France. Wherever you live, ask yourself: does your country's admissions system tell students anything about the future of the jobs it leads to?

Parcoursup was neither the devil nor the solution. Its successor won't be either.

The only question that matters: will it prepare our children for the world ahead?