Israel’s Quiet Revolution in Diversity and Higher Education

While there is much to criticize about this government’s policies toward the country’s impressive institutions of higher learning and its ongoing war on academic freedom, it has not been able to spoil a decade of progress in increasing the national commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Here’s the good news:

Last week, Professor Ami Moyal, the outgoing president of Tel Aviv’s Afeka Academic College of Engineering, appeared before the Knesset’s Education Committee in his new capacity as Chair of the Planning and Budgeting Committee of the Council for Higher Education in Israel and shared the Committee’s most recent statistics. The picture that emerges should be a source of pride and optimism for anyone who cares — not only about the future of Israel’s economy, but also about having an educated citizenry and ensuring equal opportunity for all.

Even as recently as a decade ago, Israel’s universities and colleges were perceived by many as bastions of tribal privilege—perpetuating a historically urban, Ashkenazic elite and disproportionately serving those from the nation’s economic and geographic center. That stereotype was never entirely accurate. But today, it is simply wrong. The state of higher education in Israel has changed dramatically.

According to the latest figures shared by Professor Moyal, nearly one in four Israeli university and college students now comes from the geographic periphery. Even more impressive is that 40% of students grew up in the country’s lowest socioeconomic clusters (communities ranked in the 1–4 deciles, where 10 represents the most affluent towns).

It is true that average salaries among Israel’s Arab citizens are still 35% lower than those of their Jewish counterparts. But this income gap has been slowly and steadily shrinking. Education is the reason why. During the past decade, participation of students from Arab communities in Israeli higher education has risen by 56%. Today, 19% of Israeli students come from Arab communities—almost matching their share in Israeli society. In 1950, only a tiny fraction of Arab women and about a third of Arab men in Israel could read; today, they are disproportionately represented in professions ranging from urban planning to health care.

The story is similar across Israel’s other historically disenfranchised minorities: the number of Ethiopian-Israeli students has grown by more than half; the 4.6% of Israeli students of Ethiopian origin is twice their share of the population. Participation of ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) students in higher education has increased by 85%—a sign of a society slowly bridging divides once thought unbridgeable.

This inclusivity is no accident. It is the outcome of deliberate national policy—a mix of targeted scholarships, low tuition, new campuses beyond Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and admissions flexibility for students from underrepresented backgrounds. The result is a higher-education system that now includes 57 institutions, half of them colleges located throughout Israel’s periphery.

The once-conspicuous divide between the country’s elite universities and regional colleges has also softened. Today, nearly half of the country’s 334,000 students study in colleges whose primary mission is teaching, while faculty at the nine universities increasingly focus on graduate programs and research. With a quarter of Israeli students enrolled in graduate degree programs, Israel is better equipped to provide the advanced skill sets necessary to remain at the forefront of the natural and social sciences, engineering, medicine, and yes—the humanities.

The dynamics of Israeli higher education are fundamentally different from those in other countries because our student bodies are fundamentally different: Israeli students tend to be older and more focused after completing military or national service. Unfortunately, this also means that it is common for students to disappear for 30-day stints of reserve duty. During the past couple of years, the wars in Gaza and Lebanon required many of these students to don uniforms for months at a time—literally missing hundreds of days of classes.

And so the country stepped up: universities established a national framework for reservists, guaranteeing flexibility in admissions and financial aid for those who put their studies on hold to defend the country. Astonishingly, data show that reservists among Israeli students actually dropped out less often and graduated faster than the national average. Given the right academic policies and support, service and solidarity need not be incompatible with academic success.

What I find particularly encouraging about the way Israeli society perceives higher education is the broad consensus about the importance of ensuring Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. There are legitimate arguments about how to ensure that campuses remain places where debate and discourse can take place freely.  But there is no serious critique of the deep national commitment to DEI as essential to making the country a meritocracy—a place where, regardless of birth, a successful career and a good life are attainable.

At a time when American politics has turned diversity and equal opportunity into a partisan issue, Israelis of all political stripes want to see universities serving all citizens. Israel is a tiny country; if we are to compete with the likes of China, India, and the U.S., we literally need all of our best and brightest to enrich our workforce.

For Israel, education has always been more than a means to a career; it has been the gateway to full participation in society and a sense of belonging. This is especially true today, when only half of citizens serve in the army at age 18. Making military or national service mandatory for all youth remains a critical policy objective but is still aspirational. This means universities must play an even larger role as societal equalizers, bridges between communities, and keys to sustaining a vibrant democracy.

Israeli universities have always needed to be nimble to meet the country’s needs. And they have largely succeeded. The country faces an alarming shortage of physicians in the near future. Fortunately, the number of medical students studying locally has increased from around 400 in the early 2010s to over 1,400 in 2025, indicating significant systemic expansion. This year, Israeli universities are home to 7,000 first-year computer science students, 4,400 aspiring electrical engineers, and over a thousand specializing in emerging fields such as artificial intelligence, data science, and data engineering. This does not guarantee Israeli competitiveness in the future, but it gives the country a fighting chance.

Israeli higher education still faces serious problems. As research by economist Professor Dan Ben-David demonstrates, in the rush to create new colleges, enormous gaps in the level of students and academic programs emerged. Too often, the government and educational establishment opted for “quantity of education” over “quality of education.” Government funding remains inadequate, with universities still dependent on the exceptional generosity of international supporters to provide the infrastructure and budgets necessary to compete globally in research. Graduate fellowships are too limited, forcing students to work full-time rather than focus on their studies and research.

Finally, given the pervasive apprehension caused by the government’s obsession with dismantling safeguards of Israeli democracy, many of the best minds among the universities’ talented faculty are finding alternative postings at schools overseas, where salaries are far more compelling. “Brain drain” truly threatens the traditional excellence of Israeli universities. A new government will have to address these challenges with budgets that prioritize investment in the country’s future human capital.

Nonetheless, the progress made by Israel’s academic community over the past decade reflects a society deeply committed to its most important renewable resource: human potential. By opening the gates of higher education wider than ever before, Israel is not only enriching its universities. It is also reaffirming its faith in the idea that talent knows no social barriers, and that the future should belong to all who seek to learn.

Alon Tal