Although founded in 1939, the UEC is the heir of numerous students' associations, some of them created at the end of the 19th century at the beginning of the Third Republic.

After this decision, the Revolutionary Socialist Students took the name of Étudiants collectivistes révolutionnaires (Revolutionary Collectivist Students), among which were Nguyễn Sinh Cung, later known under the name of Hô Chi Minh.

University circles were adamantly opposed to Communists, and mostly to the right — a lot of them were members of the monarchist Action française (AF).

Until the 1930s, Communist presence in estudiantine sectors remained small, and the function of responsible of students quickly disappeared in the JC.

On April 1 and 2, 1939, the Union of Communist Students held its first, constitutive, national congress.

It then boasted 1,000 members and groups in all of France, in particular in Paris, Toulouse, Grenoble and Strasbourg (where the local section was headed by Maurice Kriegel-Valrimont).

Their main struggle was then anti-fascism, carried out in a difficult context because of the Munich Agreement.

The UEC contributes to political debate, carries out investigations and information tasks.

In June 2006, the UEC participated to the collective Unis contre l'immigration jetable (United Against Throw-Away Immigration) and to the creation of the Réseau université sans frontière (Network of Universities Without Borders), opposed to anti-immigration policies then enacted by Dominique de Villepin's government (with Nicolas Sarkozy as Minister of Interior).