Low salaries, high taxes, terrorism, not enough jobs–why, one wonders, do any college graduates stay in Israel at all? So why don’t Israeli colleges and high-tech firms do what their counterparts all over the rest of the world do? I mean hire non-Jews.
In the spring issue of Azure, Marla Braverman sums up Israel’s brain drain problems. She calls for free-market reforms in the higher education system to create greater incentives for academics to remain at Israeli universities, noting that faculty salaries here are very low compared to those in the U.S., and that collective wage agreements means that all profs get the same salary, no matter how much they and their field are in demand.
But even in the absence of wage agreements, could Israel’s universities–whose funding comes primarily from the public purse–afford to pay salaries competitive with those in the U.S.? Hardly likely.