This doctoral research aims at explaining the differences of student populations between the universities of the Île-de-France region. Twelve of the sixteen universities were created after the events of May 1968, and four of them in 1991 (U2000 plan). Hence, the university landscape in the Parisian region is both complex and hierarchical. A bourdieusian perspective focused on the spatial dimension of social relations questions the factors of university segregation, defined by analogy with school segregation. Along with mental images, these factors can be analysed through material (transport systems) and institutional (allocation systems for students entering higher education) issues. Data describing the social characteristics of student populations are combined with interviews with academics and with nearly eighty students (half of them interviewed twice, or three times). Those students are registered in Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (in the quartier Latin) or in Paris 8 Vincennes - Saint-Denis, located in the northern underprivileged suburb of Paris, in Law, Geography or Administration faculties. In a segregated metropolis, allocation systems and universities strategies (specialization of curricula), along with location of faculties, create university segregation. For each student, higher education potentialities depend on his perception of institutional and material barriers. Inequalities of access to universities can be analysed through a sense of placement, resulting from the social trajectory and school capital of social agents. Indeed, students’ mobilities between universities reveal adjustments, reproducing social difference of student populations between universities.