Diversity in higher education and its implications for social stratification in Israel: Yossi Shafit, Hanna Ayalon, Svetlana Bolutin - Tajafili, Jella Menachem, Yuri Showid

Abstract

Abstract: The Israeli higher education system underwent radical changes during the 1980s and 1990s. The number of degree-granting institutions increased from 10 to over 80, and the number of university students grew from 50,000 to over 120,000. Until the late 1980s, over 90% of university students studied at one of the six research universities. The expansion primarily occurred through the establishment of non-research-oriented, less selective colleges specialized in higher education. Various types of colleges were created, including regional public colleges, teacher training colleges, branches of foreign higher education institutions, and private colleges that offered degrees in professions such as law, accounting, and management, where tuition fees were twice as high as those in public institutions.

This paper describes these changes and examines their effects on the educational stratification process at the tertiary level. It also studies the differences between graduates from different types of tertiary institutions in terms of their occupational achievement and income.