“The middle class has grown, but people at the bottom in terms of income and education haven’t reaped the benefits,” says Lucrecia Santibañez, a professor at Claremont Graduate University in Los Angeles.
Powerful drug cartels run a $30 billion illegal drug trade. Most of those drugs are going to customers in the United States.
Drug cartels also control large swaths of territory. They routinely pay off police and government officials to look the other way. Corruption is a persistent problem at all levels of government and business. And Mexico’s public education system is in need of major reform.
Only 45 percent of Mexicans finish high school on time, compared with 82 percent of American kids. Elementary schools exist in every village. But for some students, continuing beyond sixth grade requires traveling long distances. The costs of uniforms, school supplies, and transportation strain poor families. Many schools lack computers and even basic supplies like paper.
Teacher quality is often poor. And there’s no government financial aid for college, no matter how promising a student’s academic performance.
That’s the problem facing Luis Enrique Serrato Pérez, a 16-year-old from the southern province of Michoacán. Luis Enrique is in his third year of high school in the village of Santa Clara del Cobre. Math is his favorite subject. He receives top grades in his class of 37 students.
“I would love to have a career as a math teacher,” he says. “But you have to have connections.”
And money. His father, a taxi driver, probably won’t earn enough for Luis Enrique to pursue the degree he would need or to pay the necessary bribes to smooth his way to a teaching job.
Luis Enrique still remembers the day two years ago when his father, who had lost his job, left for Tijuana. He planned to illegally cross into the U.S.
His dad’s sister and her family were living illegally in Los Angeles. The prospect of American jobs beckoned. But his father’s plan for crossing the border fell apart. He returned home.
Stepped-up U.S. border patrols and an improving Mexican economy have convinced many Mexicans to stay. Most experts expect the number of undocumented Mexicans in the U.S. to continue to decline if Mexico’s economy keeps growing.