“I am supporting my housekeeper’s daughter, preparing to go to college. What does she need…?”

“…My gardener’s son is in prepa [high school] and I wish to support him. What do I need to know?”

I am asked questions like these all the time. In most of México outside of the larger urban centers, less privileged Mexicans’ transition through high school and to university can be daunting. Kids and their parent(s) may be eager for furthering education, but usually have little or no experience to draw upon for guidance. In Canada, the US and Great Britain debates swirl around the very nature of education today — the relative value of universities at high costs, curriculum relevance in a fast changing world — but those debates occur in a context where higher education has been a consensus expectation. Less so in México.

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