University teachers and students from Mexico are studying American language and culture this summer at CSU Monterey Bay.

The group of 10 is part of Proyecta 100,000, an initiative that aims to have 100,000 Mexican students enrolled at U.S. universities by 2018, and 50,000 U.S. students studying in Mexico.

The program is part of a renewed spirit of cooperation between the two governments under the Bilateral Forum on Higher Education, Innovation and Research that Presidents Obama and Peña Nieto initiated in 2013.

The Mexican government covers the cost of tuition, housing, meals and other expenses. The students are living with local families.

Their intensive English classes– 20 hours a week – include academic writing and editing, reading and oral communication. They will also visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium, San Francisco, a farmers’ market and participate in other activities including a “conversation club.”

The students will be on campus from June 8 through July 3. Their visit was kicked off with a welcome lunch and visit from the Mexican Consul General in San Jose, Javier Aguilar Cuevas, and his colleague Ileana Rossell.

Despite a shared 2,000-mile border and booming international trade, surprisingly few Mexicans study in the United States. Fewer than 2 percent of international students at U.S. colleges and universities are from Mexico; that translated to fewer than 15,000 during the last academic year, according to the Open Doors Report released last November by the Institute of International Education. Their numbers are a far cry from top-ranked China, with more than 274,000, and lower even than countries with smaller populations, such as Korea, Vietnam and Taiwan.

Conversely, U.S. students going abroad are far more likely to study in the United Kingdom, France and Italy — or even in Argentina and Brazil — than in Mexico.

This is the second group of students to visit CSUMB through the Proyecta program. The initial group came last fall, and talked about their experience on this video: