Education and Culture of Mexico City

Mexico City dominates the country's cultural life with a disproportionate number of universities, museums, and cultural institutions.

One-third of Mexico's institutions of higher learning are located in the capital, including its largest and most prestigious universities.

Most people who are educated in the capital remain there because universities provide the primary source of employment for cultural leaders in Mexico.

The dominant educational institution is the National Autonomous University of Mexico, which moved to its present site, known as University City, in 1952.

Its rapid rise in enrollment, from 40,000 in 1960 to 135,000 in the mid-1990s, reflects both the increase in the city's population and the rising aspirations of Mexicans.

To accommodate the soaring student enrollments of the 1970s, the government created the Metropolitan Autonomous University, the largest university system in the country.

It provides a series of large campuses in various areas of the city, including working-class neighborhoods. These campuses have increased access to higher education among lower-income social groups.

Also of note is the National Polytechnic University.

Another institution, the Colegio de México, patterned after the United States university system, is widely known for its graduate program and its research in the social sciences.

Mexico City is also home to the National Center of the Arts, opened in 1994.

This architecturally impressive complex houses facilities for students of the fine arts, music, film, and drama and contains a library and concert hall.

In Mexico, many university campuses are highly political, and student groups often engage in ideological battles or become actively involved in national political issues.

Universities are often the sites of strikes by university employees.

Several prestigious private colleges, including the Jesuit Ibero-American University and the Anáhuac University, are havens from the social turmoil that frequently grips the large public institutions.

While nearly all of the children in Mexico City between the ages of 7 and 13 attend elementary school, one-third never progressed beyond the 6th grade.

There is a chronic shortage of school space, which is more acute at the secondary level.

School space is in short supply partly because so many people have moved to Mexico City from rural areas.

Mexico City has a wide range of museums and cultural attractions. The Templo Mayor museum contains artifacts of the city’s early history.

Chapultepec Park contains several historical museums, including the world-famous National Museum of Anthropology, whose collection forms a comprehensive history of Mexico's indigenous populations.

It is complemented by the National Museum of History housed in Chapultepec Castle, which offers exhibits of Mexican life since the time of the European conquest in the early 1500s.

Chapultepec Park has several other museums, including Mexico’s Museum of Modern Art, which houses paintings from the 19th and 20th centuries, and the Museum of Natural History, featuring exhibits about Earth and its plants and animals.

The Rufino Tamayo Museum, also located in Chapultepec Park, includes the collection of European and American art once owned by Mexican painter Rufino Tamayo.

The park also includes the Papalote Children’s Museum. This hands-on science museum encourages visitors to take part in interactive exhibits.

The Museum of Mexico City is located in the older section of downtown. It is a general museum with an emphasis on the development of the city and history and culture of the Valley of Mexico from prehistoric times through the Mexican revolution.

In the Coyoacán neighborhood, the home of Frida Kahlo, one of Mexico's leading painters, is also a popular attraction.

Mexico City's outstanding theater is the Palace of Fine Arts. Its imposing marble structure is home to the national opera, national theater, National Symphony Orchestra, and Ballet Folklórico, the official national dance company of Mexico.

Murals by celebrated 20th-century Mexican artists, such as Diego Rivera, Juan O'Gorman, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros, adorn the Palace.

Works by these artists, which feature indigenous Mexican motifs and themes, are exhibited throughout the city in museums and on public buildings.

Among the most important sites are the National Palace, the secretariat of public education, the Chapultepec Castle, the Palace of Justice, and the National Museum of History.

Mexico City is the center of Mexico’s vigorous publishing industry, which benefits from one of the freest publishing climates in Latin America.

Two of Latin America’s best newspapers, Excélsior and Reforma, are among the dailies published in the city, which also has several television stations and numerous radio stations.

The most important libraries are found at the Colegio de México and the National Archives.