Crumbling French Universities Look for Help

The article, "Crumbling French Universities Look for Help," is from the Boston Globe by Anna Willard:

The ugly concrete campus of Paris 6 university is dominated by a tower that has been a building site for eleven years as asbestos is removed. Nobody seems to be able to pinpoint when the work will finish.

The government tried to brighten the dreary site with a modernistic red and yellow science building but forgot to put in air conditioning, a mistake because the laboratory machines heat up to temperatures that damage the research.

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France's 85 universities are struggling. They have slipped down international league tables, many are overcrowded, lacking funds and facilities and losing their best staff to better paid jobs in the United States or elsewhere.