The article retraces the emergence of work-study methodology in the landscape of higher education in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation and, more particularly, within universities, spearheaded by the primacy of a logic of competencies and the spectre of instrumentalizing knowledge. Following a historical overview of work-study instruction in the French-speaking Community of Belgium, the authors first attempt to analy­se the misgivings and issues related to the deployment of the first work-study university master’s, notably questioning this phenomenon through an interpretation grid composed of three “ideal-typical cases”. The article then questions the role of the university in these dynamics of formation where the power to train is shared, and its abilities for organizing work-study master’s programmes without losing the specificities of its instruction, with special attention to the adaptability of this secular institution in facing contemporary and future challenges.