The goal of this comparative essay on higher education in Mexico and the United States is to provide a description of the common issues within the different contexts of each country to facilitate discussions of new binational programs. Government and business sectors of both countries have acknowledged the need to reform their education, scientific, and technological systems as well as workforce training capabilities. Factors contributing to the need for reform include: a perceived decline in educational quality; increasing enrollment demands; increasing social, economic, and skill diversity within the workforce; rapid advances in technology; and global economic competition. Both countries are seeking a balance in several areas including responding to individual needs versus societal needs, maintaining institutional autonomy while increasing accountability, improving program quality while opening access, addressing global concerns while maintaining national identity, balancing conflicting economic needs, reinventing the university, and developing innovative ways to collaborate between institutions and countries in a global context. (Contains 62 references.) (JLS)