Revolutionary students are a traditional power base for radicals throughout history so I was looking into what students were up to in Paris during the Revolution. However, I discovered that the University was closed by the National Convention in 1793 and was not replaced by another institution until Napoleon came to power. Why? Promoting education seems like it would be in line with revolutionary ideals. Also, thirteen years seems like a long time to go with to formal institute of higher learning. What is the story behind their decision and what was France’s education system like during the Revolution?
If you believe R.R. Palmer, then the University of Paris (or, more correctly, its constituent colleges) had stopped functioning before this decree was made. The levée en masse, he argues, had a 'ruinous and final' impact on the colleges, as it essentialised mobilised the entire country to the war machine and thus took away many of the people who made the institutions work.
The decree, then, was more of an acknowledgement that the University just kind of stopped existing, rather than any formal move to be rid of it. That said, Adrian O'Connor has highlighted the fact that institutions like the University had been criticised for several decades prior to this 'abolition'. They, he says, were perceived by many as part of the ancien régime and thus stuck in the past. Though some people tried to defend them and advocated for keeping and reforming them, there was a real attitude for total overhaul that existed, to make education more accessible and more meritocratic (in line with a whole host of the revolutionary reforms).
I'm not sure exactly why it took so long for another similar institution to be established in Paris, though it was probably to do with the temporal context. 1793 was the start of a period of almost ten straight years of war for France, during which time it dealt with being constantly low on funds, and threats to the survival of its successive governments from within and without. I should imagine that that meant that education was fairly low on the list of priorities, until things stabilised a bit after Napoleon took power.
I'm not an expert on mid-to-late 18th century French education, but I have found some books (including the ones I mentioned) that you might find interesting if you want to learn about it:
Barnard, H.C., Education and the French Revolution (London: Cambridge University Press, 1969).
Marty, Olivier & Ray J. Amirault, Nicolas de Condorcet: The Revolution of French Higher Education (Cham: Springer, 2020).
O'Connor, Adrian, In pursuit of politics: Education and revolution in eighteenth-century France (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017).
Palmer, R.R. (ed. and trans.), The School of the French Revolution: A Documentary History of the College of Louis-le-Grand and its Director, Jean-Francois Champagne, 1762-1814 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975).