Study: Mexicans Likelier to Enroll If They Arrive Early in U.S.

By Mary Ann Zehr

Immigrant children from Mexico are much more likely to be enrolled in school by the time they become teenagers if they moved to the United States at roughly 10 years old or younger, according to a study conducted by a University of Washington researcher.

The study looked at a sample of more than 39,000 immigrants who were 15, 16, or 17 years old at the time of the 1990 Census.

Mexican teenagers had the highest rate of school "nonenrollment" of all immigrant groups studied, with an average of 28 percent not enrolled in school. But the percentage increased to 41 percent when those Mexican adolescents who had arrived in the United States after the age of about 10 were broken out into their own group, separate from those teenagers from Mexico who had arrived...