A new offering for Mexico’s hopeful college grads: student loans

By Lauren Villagran. Mexicans aspiring to middle-class status increasingly see university education as a must. Yet an over-saturated public university system accepts just a fraction of applicants, and many aspirants lack the means to pay for private college. That’s where FINAE, an institution specializing in financing higher education, comes in.
In a credit market for higher education still in its infancy, FINAE is serving a population that traditional banks have mostly ignored: students who are the first in their family to attend college, whose families fall into a bracket with middle-class aspirations, if not income. Parents think about education like an inheritance, says Celia Guerra, director of financial aid at Mexico’s private Universidad Panamericana, which facilitates FINAE credits. She says parents tell her: “Since I don’t have money, all I can leave my children is an education so that they can get ahead on their own.”
Francisco Vizcaya, a former executive of Spain’s Santander bank in Mexico, saw opportunity in this underserved niche and founded FINAE in 2008. The institution has financed the education of more than 4,000 students since then and spawned competitors, as well. Read more...