Abstract:

A new Mexican political party won the Mexican Presidency, most of the seats in Congress and the majority of elected state governors. This political party will enter into office starting December 1, 2018. People desire that the new government will decrease the rampant violence, crime, corruption and impunity in the country. The new elected Mexican President and his Cabinet have started to make plans that might change the country towards a better development. In higher education, the upcoming government has announced the construction of 100 new universities all over Mexico to increase the national coverage of higher education to an amount much greater than 38.4%, being the expected coverage by the end of 2018 [1]. The elected President has declared that there will be admission for everybody to study higher education in private or public institutions despite that autonomous institutions cannot be forced to admit students without a passing score on the admission test. Some University Presidents claim that admission tests assure higher education quality. And that not only admission is important, but also permanence and graduation, along with good jobs for graduates. Quality of higher education is not necessarily assured with larger enrollment. The new Mexican government and industry will also start a tutored training program for 2.6 million of young adults neither working nor studying, in order for them to acquire the necessary competences to find a job. However, nobody has claimed that after training, youngsters will find a well-paid job. The Mexican government also needs to take into account what Mexican public and private higher education institutions goals are for the next six years. In this paper we analyze some of the plans in higher education of the next Mexican government and how far they can possibly go in the next six years. We also analyze how some Mexican higher education institutions are changing to prepare their students for the fourth industrial revolution and to reach better world rankings at the same time that they try to obtain more funding for their activities.
[1] Secretaría de Educación Pública, Principales cifras del sistema educativo nacional 2016-2017, Mexico City/Mexico: SEP, 2017.

Keywords:

Policy, globalization, higher education, coverage.