Mexico's Youths Face Dwindling Opportunities in College Admissions, Jobs and Emigration

By Mary Jordan
Washington Post Foreign Service

MEXICO CITY -- Elizabeth Delgado Cuevas took her studies seriously, her father said, often working past midnight on her desktop computer next to the kitchen table. On Sundays the 18-year-old taught Bible classes, practicing for the career she had set her heart on: teaching elementary school.

But this summer she found out that her A's and honors were not enough to get into this city's public teachers college, where nearly 1,900 people had applied for 275 places. When she received her rejection notice, she covered her computer with plastic and cried. A few weeks later she swallowed 100 of her grandmother's prescription pills, lay down in her bed next to her favorite stuffed animal and left a world in which she saw no hope.

"She was so sad, and she felt helpless," said her father, Jose Gabriel Delgado, standing near the history books, nail polish and party shoes his daughter had left behind. "She didn't see any options. She said to me, 'What am I going to do, Daddy?' "

Delgado's suicide, one of several reported to police after colleges announced this fall's admissions, touched a nerve here. While few young people have expressed such desperation, many parents and officials said the deaths are a reflection of a growing crisis: dwindling opportunities for Mexican youths.

The three main options for high school graduates -- attending college, getting a job in Mexico or crossing the border illegally to work in the United States -- have become tougher in the past few years, according to dozens of youths and experts interviewed over the past month.

The result is that the generation being counted on to drive Mexico's future finds itself stuck. A historically high number of Mexicans -- more than 20 million people, a fifth of the population -- are 15 to 24 years old.

These young people have been promised much: They are reaching working age a decade after implementation of a free trade agreement with the United States that was supposed to bring new jobs, higher wages and a better life than their parents had. They are also coming of age as Mexico moves beyond its authoritarian past.

But millions are finding more obstacles than opportunities in the new democratic era. The lack of options, according to officials, health experts and educators, has contributed to widespread underemployment, crime, drug abuse and rising suicide rates among young people.

"I have a sense of terror of what is brewing," said Jose Sarukhan, the former rector of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), who said urgent attention and resources must be directed to young people.

"It is a time bomb," said Ana Maria Beguerisse, director of Quiera, a private bankers association that provides funding for at-risk children. "Young people are fighting for a chance, and I don't know when their patience will run out."

A Shortage of Places

In a country where students, on average, drop out of school by age 14, money for higher education has rarely been a top priority. But as the number of young people and their demands rise, it is becoming a central political issue.

President Vicente Fox said in a nationally televised speech last month that his administration was opening 57 new universities and technical institutes. Still, he said, "We are aware of the enormous needs."

With the vast majority of Mexicans unable to afford the $10,000 tuition for private universities, most young people aiming to improve their economic standing join the crowd at the doors of public institutions. At UNAM, the most famous and largest public university, 128,000 youths showed up this year to take the admissions exam, competing for 15,000 spaces. Demand has risen as much as 29 percent annually in recent years.

Maria Fernanda Covarrubias, 23, was one of the 88 percent of college hopefuls left on the sidelines. It was her third rejection. Her dream of becoming a graphics designer fades with every day she spends working as a restaurant hostess. Covarrubias's parents are UNAM graduates, which adds to her angst. "They don't understand it's so much harder to get in these days because so many more apply," she said.

The demand for college admission is expected to continue to soar until 2010, when the number of college-age Mexicans will begin declining. Seeing no good options in Mexico anytime soon, Covarrubias said she now hopes to save enough money to go abroad. "Mexico is driving away its potential," she said. "Those who are smart enough want to leave."

College is an option for less than 20 percent of Mexican youths. By government estimates, more than 1 million young people enter the workforce every year, often around age 14. They are competing for a shrinking number of jobs, especially as hundreds of thousands of factory jobs have moved to China, where wages are lower.

Because of the way Mexico calculates unemployment -- all Mexicans older than 12 are considered to be employed if they have worked as little as an hour the previous week -- the official jobless figure understates the problem. But even the official figure is at its highest level since 1997.

"University graduates are driving taxis or working in a pharmacy," said Luis Torres, 22, a Christian pastor who ministers to youths in the southern part of the city. Torres said television, movies and the Internet have increased awareness of how people live in richer countries, leading to greater expectations. Grander hopes, he said, lead to deeper disappointment.

Seeing no other option, many youths bribe their way into the prized high schools that are feeder schools to public universities. Others buy diplomas at "garage-front" colleges, as Sarukhan, the former UNAM rector, calls them.

By paying "100 pesos [about $10] to some teachers, you can get a passing grade," said Cesar Romero Arroyo, 15, who hopes to become an actor.

Jails are jammed with youths, including the increasingly younger people recruited by drug dealers. Many high-profile crimes lately have been committed by young people -- including three law students in the city of Toluca, about 35 miles southwest of Mexico City, who were arrested recently for kidnapping.

Most people from 15 to 24 are working in off-the-books sales jobs. They sell gum, CDs or designer jeans, or they work in the underground economy. There are no receipts in their businesses, no benefits and no taxes paid to the government.

"What? Pay taxes? What has the government ever done for me?" said Jorge Flores, 24, who sells Frida Kahlo posters at the busy Miguel Angel de Quevedo subway stop. He said the only interaction he has with the government is when police hassle him or nearby vendors selling New York Yankees caps and Timex watches.

The underground economy contributes heavily to a vicious cycle. The government collects so little tax revenue that money to invest in jobs and training programs for young people is scarce.

Nowhere to Turn

In many poor parts of rural Mexico, it is a rite of passage to make the illegal journey across the U.S. border to find work. But new security measures, from infrared ground sensors to more border patrol agents, have made the journey riskier.

Arrests are a key indicator of the illegal traffic across the border. They have dropped nearly in half, from 1.4 million between October 1999 and July 2000 to 748,000 during the same period ending this July, leading some to believe that fewer people are attempting the crossing.

"That tightens another option at a time when there are already fewer opportunities here," said Alejandro Nuñez, who works with street children at Casa Alianza, a nonprofit organization whose youth crisis hot line has received a record 126,000 calls so far this year.

Gloria Chavez, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, said most of those crossing appear to be between 19 and 30, in contrast to the greater number of older Mexicans making the illegal journey in the early 1990s.

Adrian Biral, 19, of Guadalajara has tried twice this year to cross the border and was returned by the U.S. Border Patrol both times. "A friend got me a job in an ice cream store in San Diego," he said from his temporary bed in the Casa Migrante shelter in Tijuana. "You feel so defeated. I am trying to find a way to help my mom. There is no work here."

Zacatequillas, in the central state of Aguascalientes, is one of thousands of towns hollowed out by emigration. The 2000 census shows that 486 people live there, but resident Patricia Diaz said there are only about 100 left -- just "old people, babies and women."

"The youths have all left," she said.

The young are abandoning the countryside, where poor economic conditions for farmers, caused in part by stiff competition from U.S. and European farmers, have propelled millions to seek work in Mexican cities or in the United States.

Sylvia Zenteno Ruano, a physician who works with young people in Merida, in Yucatan state, said increased vigilance on the U.S. border was encouraging drug traffickers to dump more drugs on the Mexican side, unleashing a flood of cocaine, crack and marijuana here and a fast-growing addiction problem among the young.

"This is not a good time to be young," she said. "Many feel lied to. . . . They thought they would have it better."

Growing Despair

One day after Delgado's suicide and just a few miles from her house, another girl, Liza Montserrat, 16, was found hanging from the ceiling in her home, a cord around her neck.

"She said she wanted to join the navy," said her father, Edgar Castro, a mechanic. "She was an honor student. I thought she could have made it."

"There is so much confusion now among young people," said her mother, Celia Resendiz, speaking quietly. "Many young people are frustrated. There are not enough opportunities."

She said Liza had planned to continue her studies and was trying to save for her future, but she earned less than $1 an hour cutting and restocking the fruit for a salad bar in a restaurant.

Health officials have warned that suicide is rising among youth, although exact numbers are still being compiled. In 2001, the most recent year for which complete statistics are available, more than a third of Mexico's 3,000 suicides were younger than 24.

Delgado's mother is still in shock. She found her daughter at dawn, a plastic bag over her head, her body filled with sleeping pills and antidepressants. She was surrounded by her many stuffed animals; her favorite brown monkey was closest to her limp body.

"If the government doesn't make room for excellent students, it kills young people's morale," Jose Gabriel Delgado said as he stood next to his daughter's computer. Without her tapping on the keyboard, he said, the house is so quiet now.

Researcher Gabriela Martinez contributed to this report.

© 2003