University presidents have sent a letter to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu calling on him not to grant Ariel University Center full university status. The upgrade would give the school significantly more funding.

“Establishing another university would deal a fatal blow to higher education in Israel,” they argued. “For year universities suffered from under-funding, which hurt their research ability, caused ‘brain drain’ and delayed the development of research infrastructure… Recently, under your government, there has been a welcome change,” they said. Adding an eighth university, they argued, would reverse recent progress.