Students cross over an international bridge between Mexico and the United States early February 10, 2025 in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

Concepción Reza grew up in a middle-class family in Mexico City and studied economics at UCLA from 1952 to 1953. She was the recipient of two scholarships from Mexico’s central bank and  from the U.S. Department of State. During Reza’s year at UCLA, a research team studying the experiences of Mexican students in the U.S. interviewed her. Why did she pursue the opportunity? Reza did not think U.S. education was inherently superior to Mexican education. But people in Mexico looked favorably upon those with U.S. degrees, she said, especially when it came to hiring, and she wanted a good job in Mexico with a high salary. 

Over 1 million international students, from Mexico and dozens of other countries still harbor similar dreams. Increasingly in the second Trump administration, though, international students report feeling unsafe, vulnerable to detention and removal, and unable to speak freely on U.S. campuses. Many young people from around the world are abandoning plans to study in the United States. And still, hundreds of thousands of international students remain. What makes that risk worthwhile?

To answer that question, it’s instructive to look at Mexico, a country with plenty of educational opportunities that nevertheless has a long history of sending its young people to study abroad. Powerful political, social and cultural forces in Mexico have always driven ambitious youth to seek places at the world’s most prestigious universities, even if those institutions happen to be in places with notable anti-Mexican sentiment. 

Article continues below this ad

Mexican students have studied in the United States and in Europe since the early 19th century, when the country’s most privileged families began  sending their children abroad. Young Mexican elites enjoyed cultural cache from........

© San Francisco Chronicle