Vice Premier Shimon Peres announced on Tuesday a plan to raise $7 million in donations from Jews abroad to help students studying in colleges in the north of the country.

Peres met with representatives from a number of Jewish organizations, who have pledged to raise a combined $5 million in order to help provide tuition fees for first-year college students, based on social and economic criteria.

The organizations also agreed to establish a $2 million scholarship fund to help second and third-year students, based social and economic criteria.

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Peres launched the campaign as part of his work raising contributions on behalf of the government for the development of the Galilee.

In addition to Peres, Jewish Agency Chairman Zeev Bielski, the heads of the Sakta-Rashi Foundation, Keren Hayesod World Chairman Avi Pazner, and Senior Vice President of UJC Nachman Shai are working toward the campaign.

Since the end of the war, the seven colleges in the north have reported that thousands of students have withdrawn from their courses.

The Tel Hai Academic College recorded a 47 percent decrease in student enrollment; Zefat Academic College reported a 22 percent decrease; the Academic College of Emek Yezreel reported a 20 percent decrease; and the Ort Braude College in Carmiel recorded a 33 percent decrease in enrollment.

College heads said the plunge in enrollment is because potential students were left this summer without employment and therefore had to postpone their studies.

At the end of the meeting, Peres said he was proud of the full participation of Diaspora Jews in strengthening the Galilee.

He said he believes that the arrival of thousands of new students to the Galilee would add an excellent young and pioneering force that would contribute much to the area's strength.

"I hope the government will soon decide to implement its commitment to establish the first Galilee university," he said. "When seeing what Ben Gurion University has done for the Negev, everyone understands the large contribution a university could give the entire Galilee."

The agency heads stressed that the campaign's goal was to "reattract young people to northern colleges and raise enrollment numbers back to what they were last year and even beyond."