Pourquoi le coût de l'éducation est-il plus élevé en zone rurale ? Le cas de la région Midi-Pyrénées

Several descriptive statistics show that average wage cost per pupil in a middle school situated in a rural area is higher than the average wage cost of a middle school pupil in an urban area. The purpose of this research is to explain this excess cost, and in particular, to test whether it can be linked directly to school location. Estimation of a regression model reveals that the zone of implantation does not directly explain the observed differences in wage cost. Application of Oaxaca?s decomposition technique shows that these differences can be explained essentially by the types of training path pupils follow, as well as by the schools? characteristics (in particular, their occupancy rate and their number of pupils per class). These specificities take into account the reality of the local context.