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Israel has worked to improve the accessibility of its higher education to under-served communities, but lower socioeconomic students, as well as those of certain ethnic backgrounds, remain disadvantaged. Unfortunately, some 'second chance' programs developed to help facilitate admission to higher education have only increased this inequality. The following research evaluates the Sami Shamoon College of Engineering pre-academic program as a gateway for these marginalized populations to access higher education. An index is developed to visualize the clusters of socioeconomic status among geographic area and region as well as participation in the pre-academic program. The descriptive and statistical analysis looks at the ethnic and socioeconomic makeup of current undergraduate students that participated in the pre-academic program as well as their yearly GPA versus their counterparts. Discussion surrounds income inequality and both higher education accessibility as well as labour market prospects for graduates from vulnerable populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To increase the prosperity of nation states and the availability of skilled labour for the global economy, many countries have encouraged students with low socio-economic status (SES) and minorities to enrol in colleges and universities. In Israel, a significant effort was made starting in 1995 to create more colleges and to provide more access to higher education for students within the mentioned groups. Yet the question arises concerning what was achieved by this effort. This paper analyses the relationship between (i) wealth and higher education in population clusters, (ii) higher education and geographical areas, and (iii) higher education and ethnic subsets in Israel. The evidence indicates a strong correlation between the SES of a locality and the number of students per residents in that locality. This correlation, however, is affected by the existence of an affordable local college. After the correlations are presented and explained, recommendations for enabling low-SES students to be successful in higher education are explored, including developing a new curriculum for middle and secondary students, creating transitional 'discourse communities' for first-year college students from low-SES, and investing in local colleges in Israel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With an ever-growing influence of the English language in the realm of higher education of non-English-speaking countries. various questions have been raised regarding the relationship between students' proficiency in the language and their academic performance. The present study was conducted at Shamoon College of Engineering with the aim of shedding further light on the relationship and investigating whether an initial level of English language proficiency of newly enrolled students. specifically their reading comprehension skills, prior to embarking upon academic courses is intluential on the students' academic achievements. The collected data encompassed 1973 students who started their studies in the academic years 2015-2016 atthe college. Drawing on the results obtained, there is a significant relationship between the students' academic performance, as well as their commutative GPA, and their beginning level of English proficiency throughout the first academic year. The paper concludes that students' English proficiency level, mainly reading comprehension skills on entry to the college. plays a significant role in their subsequent academic performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 global pandemic imposed a pause on life and higher education due to lockdowns and quarantines. Many students faced extreme financial hardship, making it difficult to continue their academic pursuits. The current study compares the pandemic's impact on Sami Shamoon College of Engineering (SCE) students' performance, dropout rate, and satisfaction with teachers before and during the patldemic. Like universities worldwide, SCE faculty scrambled to transition to online learning quickly. Our findings suggest that students were initially frustrated, but they were more understanding by the second semester of the pandemic. However, Arab students were forced to drop out at a disproportionate rate compared to Jewish students. More Arab students dropped out during the pandemic than in previous years, suggesting the pandernic affected them more substantially. Despite all the hardship, student performance did not sutTer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]