Southwestern College hosted a binational meeting bringing together dignitaries from the U.S. and Mexican consulate, Baja California’s education leaders, and Southwestern College officials last month. The meeting was a “historic collaboration” to expand access across the California-Mexico border with key initiatives including Assembly Bill 91, Community Colleges: exemption from nonresident tuition fee: residence near the California-Mexico border signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2023, recruitment efforts in Tijuana, partnerships with Mexican Universities like Centro de Enseñanza Técnica y Superior Universidad and Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, and the validation of associate degrees in Mexico.
State Assemblymember David Alvarez said 170,000 people cross the border every day, with most of them coming to work.
“As our world becomes more globalized, we need to make sure that we have a prepared workforce. That our students, who are our future workforce, are prepared. So, the conversation today is how do we prepare that workforce of the future to have the skills that we need to be competitive to have good jobs, create economic opportunity, good paying jobs, and a good quality of life for people here in San Diego, Chula Vista, the South Bay, but also in our region in Tijuana,” he said.
Secretario de Educaccion de Baja California Luis Gilberto Gallego Cortez said it is important to promote these types of programs.
“We need to communicate between the students, between the community in Mexico, because we need to know how we can obtain more degrees, more benefits for us in a cultural way, recruit more students from Mexico in the international region we have between California and Baja California. This is our goal in the short term. In the long term, we need to establish new systems with new rules for students. Maybe more scholarships to support these students from Mexico because maybe they need resources to reach these kinds of programs in the U.S,” he said.
U.S. Consul General Tijuana Christopher Teal said the U.S. Consul General oversees cultural exchange.
“That means we work with Mexican students that want to study here, Mexican teachers who want to teach here, and, for American students who want to work and study in Mexico. Our goal is to increase interaction on both sides of the border. This is fundamental for workforce development. What is fantastic here is that there is so much integration with work that goes back and forth across the border every day. It is our goal to formally increase that through higher education and have more opportunity for students to study on both sides of the border.”
