Accessibility to higher education is still considered a key component in reducing social inequality. The 90`s higher education revolution in Israel and the establishment of public colleges carried therefore a promise to enhance the diversity on campus. Examining the influence of this revolution on the extent of the national, ethnic and gender diversity of both students and academic staff in the public colleges, from a quarter of a century perspective, is therefore a productive tool in assessing its impact.
This paper wishes to present a research conducted in Sapir Academic College, which aimed to map and analyze the levels of national, ethnic, gender and spatial diversity of both students and academic staff. The main findings regarding the staff indicate that the rate of women, Mizrahi and Arab lecturers are higher than their rate in the Universities but considerably lower than their general rate in the population. The findings regarding the students indicate a reverse mirror: whereas 70% of the academic staff are of Ashkenazi origin the majority of students are probably of Mizrahi origins[1]; and whereas most of the academic staff are men, most of the students are women; and finally, the number of Arab students is more than five times the number of Arab lecturers.
[1] This is an estimation only, based on correlation between ethnicity, place of residence and socio-economic cluster, since most of the students are third generation immigrants and according to a decision made by the central bureau of statistics, ethnicity is measured only two generations back.