In the year 800, when Charlemagne (king of the Francs from 768 to 814) founded a school and an academy in his palace, and then established the schools of higher education in the monasteries (where grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, singing and music were taught), he truly intended to make education available to everyone; he also established elementary schools in the parishes so that people could learn to read, write and count.

From the thirteenth century, the reputation of French higher education grew with the influence of its universities and Paris already had developed a veritable draw internationally. The famous college founded in 1257 by the canon Robert de Sorbon, which became the Sorbonne, did a great deal to establish the French capital in its role as the renowned European centre of intellectual thought. Some hundreds of years later in the nineteenth century, the Paris of education underwent considerable growth. It saw the number of students in its six faculties (law, medicine, pharmaceutical studies, literature, sciences and theology) go from 2 500 in 1810 to close to 19 000 in 1910.

Today, Paris within and without walls counts 13 universities, created following the events of spring 1968 and the breaking-up of the Université de Paris and the idea of creating specialisations in certain subjects and thereby establishing centres of excellence.

Higher education in Paris also means specialised establishments and the Grandes Ecoles. These include: the Ecole Normale Supérieure, Sciences PO, the Beaux Arts, the engineering schools such as Paris Tech (the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, the Ecole des Mines, etc.), the Collège de France and the Institut de France, as well as several other public or private schools and institutions (architecture, engineering, veterinary, agronomics, business…). All prestigious names known worldwide and which make Paris Europe’s university capital with 300 000 students welcomed each year.