The International School for Young Astronomers (ISYA) is a program started in 1967 by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), nowadays also co-sponsored by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters (NASL). It organises three-week intensive graduate schools in parts of the world where students have less opportunity to be directly exposed to the full extent of up-to-date astrophysics. The 5-decade old ISYA program is evaluated in the context of the experienced gathered in the field: 42 schools organised in 27 countries with a grand total of more than 1400 students to date.
In the new era of fast internet connectivity, social media, virtual networks, Big Data and machine learning, the value of face-to-face graduate tuition for regions with limited up-to-date astrophysics research is presented, together with the plan to develop the program into the next decade.
