Thread: U.S., Mexico want more student exchanges

U.S., Mexico want more student exchanges

Proponents hope collaboration can strengthen region's economic integration

By Sandra Dibble 5:37 P.M.NOV. 29, 2014

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Tonalli Galicia, a 22-year-old electrical engineering student at the Autonomous University of Baja California. He is one of 7,500 Mexican students and teachers enrolled in intensive English classes across the United States this month under a Mexican government program. — Sean M. Haffey

TIJUANA — Without a visa to cross the border, Tonalli Galicia first learned English by practicing on tourists. Now the 22-year-old electrical engineering student is in the United States for the first time and preparing to receive formal instruction on a U.S. college campus.

“I asked for somewhere far away, and I got it,” said Galicia, who starts a three-week language immersion program Monday at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Conn. He’s not afraid of cold weather, and is eager to see snow, he said in an interview on the Tijuana campus of Baja California’s largest public university, Universidad Autonoma de Baja California.

Galicia is one of 7,500 Mexican university students and teachers awarded scholarships by their federal government this winter for short-term English language courses across the United States.

They are scattered at some 160 colleges and universities, with a group of 260 from different parts of Mexico currently in San Diego.

Despite a shared 1,954-mile border and booming international trade, surprisingly few Mexicans study in the United States: Under two percent of international students at U.S. college and universities are from Mexico — fewer than 15,000 during the current academic year, according to the Open Doors Report released last month by the Institute of International Education.

Their numbers are a far cry from top-ranked China, with more than 274,000, and lower even than countries with smaller populations, such as Korea, Vietnam and Taiwan.

Conversely, U.S. students going abroad are far more likely to study in England, France and Italy — or even in Argentina and Brazil — than in Mexico.



The trends hold true locally as well: the UABC receives more exchange students from Europe than the United States. Of some 1,000 students who are enrolled in study-abroad programs at the University of California San Diego only three are in Mexico; and of about 4,000 international students studying at the school’s La Jolla campus, only 47 are from Mexico.

Efforts at changing these dynamics are being launched on both sides of the border, through exchange programs, scholarships, and funds for cross-border collaborations among universities. The University of California system launched a UC-Mexico initiative early this year aimed re-engaging with Mexico. In July, Gov. Jerry Brown signed an agreement with the Mexican government aimed at increasing collaboration in higher education.

Here along the San Diego-Baja California border, schools such as UC San Diego, Southwestern College, the UABC and the private Baja California university CETYS are working with their countries’ consulates to explore new cross-border internship possibilities with businesses and nonprofit organizations in the region.

The idea is that such cross-border programs can eventually help increase the integration and competitiveness of the North American region: “If we can get students who speak each others’ languages and know how to work together, we have a stronger future together,” said Stephanie Syptak-Ramnath, minister-counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City.

“In order to innovate, we need research,” said Remedios Gómez-Arnau, head of the Mexican Consulate in San Diego. “We need the researchers to work together, to learn the language of the other country.”

It wasn’t so long ago that U.S. universities were canceling programs in Mexico, fearful that students could get caught in the crossfire of drug violence. Even areas of Mexico with little such crime became off limits for risk-averse administrations such as the California State University System, which had a countrywide ban on academic exchanges in Mexico from 2010 to 2013.

Now CSU schools are part of a reverse trend striving to have 100,000 U.S. students enrolled at Latin American and Canadian universities by 2020, and a similar number of students from those countries studying in the United States by that same year, with half the number from Mexico. The program, called 100,000 Strong in the Americas, was launched by President Barack Obama in March 2011.

In 2013, Mexico followed suit with a complementary initiative known Proyecta 100,000. Its aim is to have 100,000 Mexican students enrolled at U.S. universities by 2018, and 50,000 U.S. students enrolled at Mexican institutions.

“It is fascinating. They are our third largest trading partner, yet there are so few exchanges,” said Steve Vetter, president of Partners of the Americas, a nonprofit group in Washington, D.C., that is working with NAFSA: Association of International Educators and the U.S. State Department to foster collaboration among universities on both sides of the border.

Vetter said there are multiple reasons for the low numbers, including “the well-worn path to Europe,” for many U.S. universities that have long-standing relationships with higher education institutions there. As for study in Mexico, “there is not a scarcity of interest in opening up and students going in both directions,” Vetter said. “But you have these organizational and institutional barriers.”

Partners of the Americas is playing a central role in the effort to change that, and has been charged with administering the 100,000 Strong in the Americas Innovation Fund, which awards grants to higher education institutions that come up with innovative proposals to increase study abroad in the Western Hemisphere. Started with $1 million from the federal government, and supplemented with foundation and business contributions, the fund has made $1million in grants this year, ranging from $25,000 to $60,000.

Fernando Leon, president of CETYS University and a longtime champion of international study, sees the collaborations as positive steps, “but there is no reason we could not be doing a lot more than we are already doing.”

CETYS is participating in two of the successful proposals, both aimed at promoting study abroad in engineering, physics, geology and geophysics: one with the University of North Texas, the other with the University of Texas at El Paso.

At San Diego State University, a school with a long tradition of international educational exchanges, professor Paul Ganster praised the 100,000 Strong initiative for raising the issue of study abroad programs. “It’s great to have the publicity and the moral support, but there’s little funding attached,” he said.

And despite its goodwill, the U.S. federal government’s emphasis on border security since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, remains a deterrent to exchange programs on the border, said Ganster, associate director of international programs at the university.

“Right now Mexican students have to get visas instead of just coming over for a weeklong seminar,” he said. “It’s made it so much more difficult to do things in the region that we had done for decades.”

sandra.dibble@utsandiego.com
(619) 293-1716
Twitter: @sandradibble

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