Cross-border school enrolment: Associated factors in the U.S.–Mexico borderlands

Abstract

This paper examines students who live in Mexico but attend school in the U.S., and looks into the factors associated with their decision to study abroad. Based on Mexico’s 2015 Intercensal Survey, cross-border students are described in terms of their number, location, educational level and socioeconomic characteristics. Subsequently, the study estimates probit models to analyze the factors associated with studying in the United States. Cross-border students are mainly U.S.-born and concentrated in Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez. The probability of being a cross-border student is positively associated with age, household income and having a household member who was born in the U.S. or is a cross-border worker. Cross-border students come from high-income households with strong ties to the United States. The decision to study in the U.S. is likely taken due to the higher quality of the country’s education system and to facilitate an eventual transition into the U.S. labor market.

Keywords:

• Education
• Cross-border students
• Transfronterizo students
• Mexico
• United States

Notes

1 For example, while in 2014 the poverty rate in Mexico was 46.2%, it was considerably lower in all six northern border states: Baja California (28.6%), Chihuahua (34.4%), Coahuila (30.2%), Nuevo León (20.4%), Sonora (29.4%) and Tamaulipas (37.9%) (CONEVAL, 2016).

2 While high school education became compulsory in the U.S. in the 1930s, this was only incorporated into Mexico’s basic education plan in 2013. Moreover, according to the Program for International Student Assessment, in 2012 U.S. students ranked significantly higher than their Mexico-based counterparts in mathematics, reading and science (OECD, 2014). Regarding higher education, according to the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2015–2016, 137 of the 600 top universities in the world were located in the U.S., while only two were in Mexico (THE, 2016).

3 A growing literature has also examined the population that lives in Mexico but is employed in the U.S. (Alegría, 2002;Escala & Vega, 2005; Orraca, 2015). Referred to as transmigrants, commuters or cross-border workers, this group optimizes the socioeconomic resources available to them on both sides of the border. On the one hand, in the U.S. they have access to shorter workweeks and better remunerated jobs. On the other hand, in Mexico they enjoy lower living costs and better housing conditions while maintaining family and cultural ties. Similarly, Mora (2006) and Mora and Dávila (2011) analyze cross-border workers who live in the U.S. but work in Mexico.

4 These differences in the returns to schooling vary depending on the country in which they received their education (Fortin, Lemieux, & Torres, 2016) and the immigrant’s legal status (Rivera-Batiz, 1999).

5 Identifying whether a student meets residency requirements can be a difficult task for educators, with rules that can vary between districts. For example, in San Ysidro, California, families must provide a mortgage or rental agreement and show utility bills in their name (Hernández, 2010). In Del Rio, Texas, the district requires parents or guardians to provide an official document such as a utility bill, lease or proof of rent payment (Cuevas-Nazario, 2009). Some districts have taken actions to prevent residents of Mexico from attending school in the United States. These include deploying district staff to the border to monitor the residency documents of students entering the U.S. (Núñez, 2010).

6 Authors’ calculation based on the Encuesta Nacional de Ingresos y Gastos de los Hogares (ENIGH, National Household Income and Expenditure Survey) and the American Community Survey (ACS) 2014.

7 The Intercensal Survey was collected during the first trimester of 2015. During this period, the exchange rate between the MXN and the USD was approximately 15.0 MXN per 1.0 USD. The depreciation of the MXN relative to the USD affects the capacity of households in Mexico to send their children to school in the U.S., especially among those that do not engage in cross-border work or receive their income in MXN.

8 Students who live and go to school in Mexico, i.e. non-crossers, are referred to as “local students”.

9 Cross-border students who are employed in the U.S. do not appear to work in graduate assistant positions. Of the 1,764 transfronterizo students who attend college, university or graduate school and engage in cross-border work, only 9 report working in a university or research center.

10 To alleviate some of the inconveniences associated with border crossing times and expedite the inspection process at U.S. ports of entry, numerous technological developments have been implemented, including the introduction of Ready Lane or Radio Frequency Identification enabled travel documents and the implementation of the Security Electronic Network for Traveler’s Rapid Inspection (SENTRI) program.

11 Vandrick (1995) discusses privileged immigrant students in U.S. universities. The high levels of income of some transfronterizo students at the household level suggest that some of them belong to this group.

12 Since members of cross-border students’ households are highly likely to have previously lived in the U.S., their lower home ownership levels may also reflect the fact that they are still assimilating to the region and therefore have not yet settled.

13 If the variable in question is not continuous but binary, the calculation of its marginal effect is computationally different and is commonly referred to as an impact effect. The impact effect of a dummy variable on the outcome of interest is given by the differences between the two CDF values $\Delta =\Phi \left(x_i\beta +\gamma \right)-\Phi \left(x_i\beta \right)$, where γ represents the coefficient accompanying the binary variable.

14 This is done because these control variables are for the most part relevant only among students who are 18 years of age or older.

15 Results presented in Tables 4–7 based on the probit coefficients, instead of the marginal effects, provide similar findings and are available upon request.

16 The cities located on the U.S. side of the metropolitan areas included in this subsample are San Diego, Calexico, San Luis, Nogales, El Paso, Del Rio, Eagle Pass, Laredo, McAllen and Brownsville.