Compensation policies break with the principle of equality of treatment in the name of corrective justice. During its introduction, French and US actors used the subsidy they were granted to reduce the student-to-teacher ratio. However, this process was not straightforward either in terms of the objectives of compensation policies or of the effectiveness of this practice as regards academic success. The reconstitution of the processes of change reveals that this choice was the one that least altered existing practices while being understood differently in the two countries.