Finding a Great Private School in Mexico

Reader Question: I have been looking to several international schools online, their fees are so different then what you mention in your blog.

Manny's Answer: The main problem is that you can't really search online.  There is some limited information available online, but I would never advise anyone to pick out their children's school in Mexico without actually visiting the city and going to the schools in person. It's not a decision to be made lightly.

But I can tell you that our eldest son's tuition is currently 2,900 pesos per month, and that includes a private tutor 3 days a week. That is approximately $150 American dollars at the current exchange rate (current exchange rate is 19 pesos per U.S. dollar). I will say that we spent a lot of time researching "on the ground" so to speak, because many of the private schools in Mexico advertise locally and do not have regular webpages. For example, our son's school only has a Facebook page, and even that page is not frequently updated.

People advertise by word of mouth and (sometimes) Facebook, so many of the best schools are not even online. You really have to go to the city in person and research when you get there. We researched many schools, all over Mexico, and although the prices and the quality of the schools seemed to vary wildly, we found several excellent private (bilingual) schools in every major city that we visited. 

We have had great luck so far, and we could never have afforded this quality of private education in the US. Our son's private school offers lots of individual attention, the class sizes are small (12-13 students per class, versus 30 in the U.S.). The school even offers robotics and Japanese! Our son struggled with writing, language and math, but he has thrived in Mexico. Even his speech and vocabulary has improved.

For this alone, we should have made our move sooner. We do not regret our decision to expatriate one bit.