Remittances help keep kids in school - and in Mexico

The lifeline being tossed to this small town of about 16,000 inhabitants in the rural state of Michoacán, with its low -paying brickmaking industry and thinning corn crops, is not easy to spot.

In a rare effort, a tightly knit group of Indaparapeo immigrants living in the US is sending money back to fuel a university scholarship program. Typically, migrants who cobble together remittances choose to build publicly viewable bridges, roads, or soccer parks. But with towns increasingly emptying because of migration, this project is investing in less-visible human capital, creating incentives to stop people from going to the US in the first place.

"We won't stop migration, but we figure that education is one way to offer people more choices," says Horacio Tovar, an engineer who helps run the program from here. As a teen, Mr. Tovar saw his family leave for the US, first his father and then his five brothers.

"I was studying here in Mexico and had good job offers after university," says Tovar. "I saw a future for myself in Mexico. Perhaps other young people here will feel the same."

In its third year, the Indaparapeo project currently sponsors 40 university students from the town, up from 25 in 2003. Each student receives a $150 monthly stipend until they complete their studies. Students are selected based on their grades, their income level - the average scholarship student's family depends on a monthly income of about $300 - and their willingness to participate in community services.

Scholarship funding comes from migrants living in both Chicago and northern California, where large groups of people from Indaparapeo and other parts of Michoacán have settled (the migrants estimate that at least 1,000 people from Indaparapeo live in or around Napa Valley, Calif.). Fundraisers, which range from dinner-dances to soccer tournaments, can draw up to 500 people. "We're now seeing the same crowds at our events," says Luis Tovar. "Most people who come have some connection to Michoacán."

The Mexican government helps give the program oomph through its Three for One initiative, which triples the migrants' contributions through matching grants. The government program, created by President Vicente Fox in 2002, typically allocates funds for municipal works related to infrastructure rather than education. But Luis Tovar, from Chicago, and his brother, Alejandro Tovar, an English teacher living in Indaparapeo and a founding member of the scholarship program, went to the municipal president's office in Indaparapeo with the scholarship plan in hand.

The $150 stipend may seem puny, but in a low-income town like Indaparapeo it can mean the tipping point for choosing higher education over working on a ranch or in a grocery store - or heading to the US.

Although tuition at Mexico's public universities is a token amount, thanks to government subsidies, the scholarship students consider the aid vital for covering extra costs such as textbooks, photocopying, and bus fare.

"For me, the aid makes the difference between having to work to pay for my books or study full-time," says Ignacio Rodríguez, an engineering student at the Technological Institute of Morelia, located in the state capital. He spoke quickly, on his way to a study group after attending the scholarship group's weekly meeting. The gatherings take the project's pulse and catch up on the group's various community activities, which range from literacy programs to outreach with alcoholics and drug addicts.

Mr. Rodríguez's mother sells sandwiches streetside in Indaparapeo; he is estranged from his father, who left to work in Illinois when he was a boy. The Rodríguezes' scant earnings made Ignacio eligible for the financial aid.

"A lot of my friends left for the US before finishing high school," says a clean-cut and confident Rodríguez. "That's typical here, but it's not how I want to go. If I ever head to the US, it'll be for a PhD."

It is estimated that about one-third of Indaparapeo's residents have moved to the US, according to Saul Mascareño, Indaparapeo's municipal secretary.

Judith Aguilar and her younger sister, Ivette, both scholarship students, appear more determined to stay in town. Ivette is studying education in Morelia and hopes to start up Indaparapeo's first preschool.

Page: 1 | 2