Last update - 00:00 24/09/2007
TAU, Bar-Ilan draw fewer applicants for new school year
By Tamara Traubmann, Haaretz Correspondent
Tel Aviv and Bar-Ilan Universities will have fewer applicants for this academic year, which opens next month, than for last year, according to unofficial application figures. But applications for the other four universities have remained stable or risen slightly, according to data collected at Haaretz's request.
The number of students who applied to Bar-Ilan University declined by two to three percent compared to last year. At Tel Aviv University (TAU), though registration is still open, only 11,286 students had applied by the end of August, compared to 12,196 last year, a drop of about 8 percent. This is TAU's second year of decline: The previous year saw a 6.5 percent drop in applicants. TAU's center for student registration says that by the time school starts, this year's decline should narrow to 7 percent.
Tel Aviv University is recovering from a serious budgetary deficit, accompanied by a rise in the number of students per class and a reduction in faculty. Since TAU is the largest university in central Israel, it does not invest as much in marketing itself as do colleges and other universities.
TAU says the decline in applications does not stem from its being less attractive to students or the difficulties students have in renting apartments in Tel Aviv. "The number of applicants is not significant," TAU Rector Dan Levitan said "There are certain people we are not at all interested in having study here," he added.
According to Levitan and the director of the registration center, Etie Keren, it seems that fewer students with lower grades are applying. Keren noted that despite the decline in applications, the grade threshold for acceptance had not declined, since the number of applicants still exceeds the number of available places.
According to the registration center, the main drop in demand at TAU is in the hard sciences and, to a lesser extent, in some of the life sciences. "We are pained by the declining attraction to the sciences, but the younger generation is looking for professions that will give them a livelihood," Levitan said.
Bar-Ilan University responded: "The university's average application figures are stable; this is a negligible decline that may shrink by the beginning of the school year."