Uncovering Mexico
Jeremy Schwartz is the Mexico correspondent for Cox Newspapers. He is based in Mexico City.What's on this page?
All the entries posted on July 22, 2008.
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Home > Uncovering Mexico > Archives > 2008 > July > 22
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Mexican universities tougher to get into than Harvard
Here’s a statistic that may help explain Mexico’s economic malaise: only about 9 percent of students who applied to Mexico City’s vast National Autonomous University (UNAM) got in for the fall semester. That number, which comes to us thanks to David Agren over at The News (Mexico’s biggest English language newspaper has finally jumped online) and is further proof of the lack of opportunity that stymies Mexico’s youth.
As Agren reports, highly subsidized public schools like the UNAM are basically the only option for low income youth. Mexico’s private universities generally charge stratospheric prices and Mexico’s many so-called “institutes,” while cheap, are poorly regarded by employers. So when the UNAM rejects 57,000 kids in a single semester, you have to wonder where they will end up.
School officials blame (shocker) a lack if public funding for the space shortage, saying it hasn’t kept up with increasing demand.
But it’s not as though job prospects for college grads are all that great in Mexico City. The city is littered with computer science majors selling pirated software and biologists driving taxi cabs. More than 40 percent of Mexicans aged 15 to 24 can’t find a job, according to the nonprofit group Young Entrepreneurs for Mexico.
As Mexico lurches toward democracy, one if its biggest challenges will be creating opportunity for its youth. For too many, Mexico remains a closed society.