Mandatory 5% Scholarships: What the Law Requires from Your Private School
Emilio Zárate
If your school has RVOE, the law leaves no option: at least 5% of your enrollment for each plan and program must be scholarshiped, and the Supreme Court has confirmed it is constitutional.
Mandatory 5% Scholarships: What the Law Requires from Your Private School
If your school has Official Recognition of Validity of Studies (RVOE) or authorization, the General Education Law gives you no choice: you must allocate scholarships to a portion of your students. This is not a corporate social responsibility program nor a marketing decision — it is a legal obligation, reaffirmed as constitutional by the Supreme Court, and September is the month when several entities close the application period for the current cycle.
What the law exactly states
Article 149, section III of the General Education Law requires private institutions that provide education with official recognition or authorization to "grant scholarships covering the educational service, which cannot be less than five percent of the total students enrolled in each plan and program of studies." The distribution is made by educational level, not across the entire institution.
How it is calculated and possible forms
The 5% is measured on the enrollment of each plan and program with RVOE, not on the total school if you operate multiple levels. Scholarships can be full or partial; when partial, the exemption cannot be less than 25% of the tuition fee. Several entities, such as the State of Mexico, replicate this minimum in their local education law and open annual calls with their own registration and result publication dates.
What the law prohibits
The same Article 149 prohibits conditioning the granting or renewal of a scholarship on accepting any credit, lien, service, or extracurricular activity at the expense of the recipient. You also cannot increase tuition, registration fees, or other charges that were not announced at the start of the school cycle or agreed upon in writing with families.
Who assigns the scholarships and what role your school plays
The formal assignment is the responsibility of the educational authority (the Secretariat at the federal level or its state equivalent), not at the discretion of the school. Your institution must report enrollment by plan and program, maintain the scholarship registry available for review, and cannot deny an already assigned scholarship by the authority nor condition it.
A change already in Congress
There is a proposal in the Chamber of Deputies to raise the minimum from 5% to 10% of enrollment. It is not law yet, but if your school operates near the current limit, it’s worth keeping an eye on: such an increase would be applied immediately in the next cycle, without a long transition period.
What to review before the application period closes
- Confirm what percentage of scholarship students you currently have for each plan and program with RVOE, not in total.
- Verify that no active scholarship is conditioned on a service, credit, or extracurricular activity.
- Check that any adjustments to tuition fees for the current cycle have been announced or agreed upon from the start.
- Keep the scholarship registry handy: it is the first thing the authority will ask for during a review.
Sources
- General Education Law, Article 149 — Chamber of Deputies
- SCJN validates the constitutionality of the 5% scholarship requirement — La Jornada
- Proposal to increase minimum scholarships from 5% to 10% — Chamber of Deputies
- How the exemption scholarship works in private schools in Edomex — ADN40
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