"We live in an area of high percentages in low-income, 1st generation college student families," stated Maestas, "And when the getting's tough, they go to work." He enlightened us with the results of a 20 year-long study of oil production and told of an inverse correlation between unemployment rates and college going. "When unemployment rates go up, so does enrollment in colleges and universities. It's very common to see this." He had a very important message to young people just getting out of high school, "If you're wanting to go work in the oil fields, that's fine, but in terms of getting a degree, no one can take that away, because what goes up must come down and when the boom comes back down, you will always have your degree to fall back on." He says that in fact the greatest equalizer is education and one can truly get one leg up on the competition in this highly competitive world of high-stakes finance and business is to do just that, get a degree. Dr. Maestas has 35 years of higher education experience as a faculty member and an administrator. He served as Director of Hispanic Affairs at Ohio State University, Director of Minority Engineering Programs, Mathematics and Science at the University of New Mexico, and received his Ph.D. from the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary education at the University of Michigan. He is one of only 4% of all university presidents who is Hispanic among 6,500 universities in the country. The Eagle Pass News Gram salutes Dr. Maestas and all his staff and faculty for furthering the educations of and providing invaluable opportunities for the people of South Texas.