השתלבות צעירים בהשכלה הגבוהה: אתגרים בעקבות מגפת הקורונה

Transitions are always challenging. One of the primary challenges facing about half of all Israeli young adults is successful integration into higher education. In recent years,many young adults have taken a path that begins with finding a job after their military or national service to save enough money to pay for a lengthy backpacking trip and,often, for their academic studies upon return. Previous studies have mapped the hurdles in the “classic” track, including choosing one’s higher education institution and study major(s), successfully adapting to higher education, and, after finishing their academic studies, transitioning to appropriate employment. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted this track for many young adults. The present study examines the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the accompanying employment and tourism crises on young adults’ perceptions regarding higher education, their reasons for continuing their education (“Why study?”), their psycho-social readiness to do so (“What personal resources do you have that will help you persevere and succeed?”), and how they perceive work (“What purpose do you ascribe to work?”).To determine whether the COVID-19 pandemic influenced students’ answers to those three questions, we used two sets of data. One was collected in October 2019 (before the pandemic) from 2,434 first-year students in the 2019 cohort who responded to three questionnaires addressing various aspects of higher education. The second was collected in October 2020 from 2,376 first-year virtual-learning students in the 2020cohort. The students’ responses on those questionnaires showed that the two cohorts had similar degrees of readiness to undertake their higher education studies and assigned similar purposes to work. With respect to what they sought to gain from higher education, however, a few interesting differences emerged. Whereas the importance ascribed to knowledge decreased slightly and prestige became substantially less important, the social aspect of attending university or college became slightly more important between 2019 and 2020. These findings reflect the challenges involved in transitioning from military or national service to higher education and successfully adapting in the first year, as well as the effects of the pandemic on the reasons for attending university or college.