Higher education in France was reshaped by the student revolts of May 1968. During the 1960s, French public universities responded to a massive explosion in the number of students (280,000 in 1962-63 to 500,000 in 1967-68) by stuffing approximately one-third of their students into hastily developed campus annexes (roughly equivalent to American satellite campuses) which lacked decent amenities, resident professors, academic traditions, or the dignity of university status. With so many students ripe for radicalization after being forced to study in such miserable conditions, change was necessary and inevitable. Rather than expand already-overwhelmed parent campuses, it was decided to split off the annexes as new universities.