The committee of university heads announced Thursday that they would not open the school year this coming October if the government doesn't give back NIS 350 million of the amount cut from the higher education budget in recent years.

The decision was authorized by the presidents of all seven universities - Hebrew University, Tel Aviv University, Bar Ilan University, the Technion, the University of Haifa, Ben Gurion University, and the Weizmann Institute, during a meeting of the committee.

Committee Chairman Professor Moshe Kavehsaid said the school year cannot open this year "with the current budget and with threats of further cut backs." According to him, "Without an immediate refund of the noted amount, the universities will not be able to open their gates to about 150 thousand students in the coming academic year."

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Over the last five years, the higher education budget has been reduced by about NIS 1 billion, which constitute 20 percent of the overall budget.

"We have reached the end of the road as for what the universities can do within the reduced budget framework," said Technion President Prof. Yitzhak Apeloig.

According to Apeloig and Kaveh, the cuts have severely harmed the quality of research and instruction, and have thus led to an ever growing "fleeing of minds."

"We have reached a crossroads, and if we go on in this manner, we will strike an irreversible blow to the future of the research universities," said Prof. Apeloig.

Apeloig said that the cuts had hurt research the most. According to him, this year the Technion will welcome only 10 new faculty members, its smallest amount ever.

"In this manner, an institution cannot be revitalized or maintain its place in the frontier of science, especially not when the retirement rate is 2-3 times that."

The quality of instruction has also severely decreased. In the technion, for example, there are currently 22-23 students per faculty member, a ratio about 2-3 times larger that that in elite universities in the United States, said Prof. Apeloig.