Crisis in Higher Education in Israel
The Steinhardt Institute hosted higher education leaders from Israel and the United States to discuss the impending crisis in Israeli higher education. Israel has seen massive growth in its postsecondary education sector over the last 10 to 15 years; the number of colleges and universities tripled between 1995 and 2004, and enrollments increased by nearly 80%. As a result, many questions have emerged about how the system should be funded, organized, and differentiated. Senior Israeli faculty and representatives from Israel's Academy for Sciences and Humanities, the Israel Science Foundation, and the Yad Hanadiv (Rothschild) Foundation reported to US policy experts that the system had reached a point of crisis. Government reductions in higher education spending, and unusually low student tuition rates, have meant that resources for attracting top faculty and graduate students, developing advanced research programs in the sciences, and maintaining a high quality learning environment for undergraduates are scarce. Over a two-day meeting in October, participants discussed short- and long-term policy solutions to strengthen Israeli higher education.