The cost of high school

On 29 September 2015, the Court of Auditors published a report on the cost of high school, as a follow-up to its reports of 2010 (National Education for the Success of All Students), 2013 (Manage teachers differently) and 2015 (Students’ individualised monitoring). Created in 1802 to forge the nation’s elite, the high school now leads 80 % of an age class at the baccalaureate level. This quantitative challenge has been met. However, while the average cost of a French high school student is 38 % higher than that of secondary school students in other OECD countries, qualitatively the results in France in terms of success in post-bac studies or the integration of vocational graduates into the labour market are very important. The Court, after analysing the components of this cost, detailed by series, by discipline, identifies several levers capable of ensuring its control, in order to finance reforms necessary to improve the overall performance of the education system. This report is available on the [Court’s website](https://www.ccomptes.fr/fr/publications/le-cout-du-lycee). The published files correspond to the data that formed the basis for the preparation of the report, which alone binds financial jurisdictions. The provision of this data complements the provision of information for citizens.