A group of students from Drake University recently completed an 18-day exchange program with the Tec de Monterrey Guadalajara Campus – the first visit of its kind since 2008.
According to the U.S. Consulate General in Guadalajara, the visit is “a positive sign” that the United States and Mexico are fulfilling the objective of presidents Barack Obama and Enrique Peñã Nieto to grow educational collaboration and exchange programs between the two nations.
U.S. Consul General Susan Abeyta welcomed the students to the consulate to explain the facility’s mission and services that it provides to both U.S. and Mexican citizens.
The visit coincided with the launch of the 100,000 Strong in the Americas initiative on January 17 at the U.S. State Department in Washington, DC.The goal of Obama’s signature education initiative is to increase the number of U.S. students studying in Latin America and the Caribbean to 100,000, and the number of Latin American and Caribbean students studying in the United States to the same figure.
At the ceremony, Secretary of State John Kerry said he hopes to mobilize resources for the initiative’s fund, with a goal of raising millions of dollars in private sector investment.
Santander Bank signed a one-million-dollar agreement to support the program with Partners of the Americas Foundation and the Association of International Educators, two of the organizations selected by the Department of State to implement the initiative.
Vice President Biden said the focus of the fund is to create incentives for higher education institutions to overcome barriers and bring about wholesale, systemic change in how study abroad is administered in the Americas.
“100,000 Strong isn’t just another U.S. government scholarship program,” Biden said. “We are trying to create a synergy. A new synergy with private sectors, charities, universities, and all the governments in the hemisphere, to invest in sending students to and from the United States, to lower the financial and logistical and language and informational barriers that now stand in the way.”