Higher education in northern Mexico is suffering at the hands of organized crime

The Mexican government’s inability to maintain law and order is having a major impact on access to higher education in the drug violence-ravaged northeast of the country.

According to a report by Mexico’s Proceso magazine, a wave of extortion, kidnappings and even killings of university students by vicious drug cartels in the states of Tamaulipas, Nuevo León and Coahuila has forced the closure of several universities.

The breakdown in security has also fueled a major exodus, with thousands of students leaving the region to complete their studies in safer parts of Mexico or across the border in the United States.

For the last two years, the Gulf Cartel and its fearsome former armed wing Los Zetas have demanded that universities in Tamaulipas pay them 100,000 to 350,000 pesos (US$6,500 to $22,900) per month in return for “protection,” Proceso reported.

The extortion has led to the closure of two campuses run by the private University of the Valley of Mexico (UVM), while Mexico’s Chamber of Commerce has denounced threats against another 18 universities in the region…

Click here to read this article in full at Latin Correspondent.