Ivan Morales Ramirez earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology in 2019. According to the University of St. Thomas in Houston (UST), a successful collegiate soccer career also gave the first-generation graduate the financial means to earn a Master’s Degree in International Business at UST’s Cameron School of Business.
On May 14, Morales joined more than 900 undergraduate and graduate students at UST’s Commencement Ceremony to receive his master’s degree in international business (MIB). During the summer of 2021, he was part of the Collaborative Online International Learning class with Universidad de las Américas Puebla in Mexico for International Economics. Morales’s MIB thesis is reportedly on the impact of economic remittance from the United States to Mexico.
According to the Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute, 2021 marked a year of historically high remittances to Mexico with the country receiving over 51.6 billion dollars.
The Mexican migrant population both documented and undocumented in the United States totals 11.9 million people, and 32% of remittances were sent by women in 2021.
One in five Mexican migrants are employed in the construction sector (20.8%), professional and administrative (12.7%), manufacturing (12.5%), hospitality and leisure (12.1%), commerce (11.2%), education and health (9.7%), transportation and basic services (5.6%), agriculture (5.2%) and others (9.4%).
Out of all the remittances arriving in México in 2021, 94.9% came from the United States. The state of California () accounted for over half of all remittances while Texas (15.9%) and Minnesota (7%) were the second and third largest sending states with 7.8 billion dollars and 3.4 billion dollars. In addition, the average remittance payment in 2021 grew 11.1%, equivalent to US$340 total.
After graduation, Morales aspires to excel in a finance or investment firm to gain real-world experience.
UST shared that over the last two years, Morales served as a graduate assistant for both the UST women’s and men’s soccer teams. The men’s 2022 soccer team won its SCAC conference championship for the first time.
In addition to collegiate soccer, Morales coached at a youth football club in Atlanta. He also worked as an assistant with Houston Dash, a women’s pro team, in analytics. “I lead by example,” Morales told UTS. “I try to show the athletes the importance of being a student-athlete and its responsibility.”
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