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This article deals with the question of the residential migrations caused by the pursuit of higher education in France. While since the 1990s, access to university has greatly increased, this evolution has come at the cost of a strong hierarchy of higher education courses, within which the position occupied largely depends on sex and social origin. In a first part based on the analysis of statistical data and case studies, the article examines the spatial dimension of the distribution of students in the higher education space. Women are more likely than men to leave their places of residence after the baccalaureate, but also to return after their studies, especially in the working classes. The second part of the article shows that this phenomenon, which concerns in particular young women from rural areas and small and medium-sized towns, can be explained by a deficit of social resources, as well as by the multiple reminders of their origins weighing on them. The article ultimately highlights the small differences in the life journeys of “local” students, depending on the fraction occupied in the working classes.