Since 43 students at a teachers college in rural Ayotzinapa, Mexico, were disappeared in September, dozens of remaining members of their first-year class have abandoned their studies.

Within days of the students’ kidnapping and suspected massacre by a drug gang, nearly everyone in the first-year class — where the majority of the 43 disappeared students were enrolled — left the school, students told Al Jazeera.

“The freshman class was down to about five students, but now as we better understand the situation and have talked to the families, some have started returning, one by one,” said Uriel Alonso Solís, a 19-year-old second-year student at Ayotzinapa, adding that about 25 freshman students are currently attending classes.

But at least 75 students have discontinued their studies, according to members of the school’s student committee.

Peter David García López, a third-year student at the college and speaker of the student committee, confirmed the dropout numbers among first-year students. He said many of the students who opted out were following the wishes of their families.

“I understand why the other boys at Ayotzinapa are afraid of another retaliation,” Mary Magdalena Maestro Olivares, the mother of Antonio Santan Maestro — a 20-year-old freshman at Ayotzinapa who is among the disappeared — told Al Jazeera. “It’s the fear that made them leave and their parents also became afraid that their sons would disappear or be killed.”

Both students and parents recognize, however, that giving in to the fear may mean giving up on the future because poor students at "normal schools" — which offer free education and board — have few other options for obtaining an education.

“For almost all of us the chance to study at the Ayotzinapa Normal School represents everything because we have no other choice,” said José Armando, a first-year student at Ayotzinapa.

The students’ disappearance has sparked mass protests throughout Mexico. Yet demonstrators’ demands are not confined to the students’ safe return. There are growing calls for the resignation of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and his administration, seen by many as too lethargic — even complicit — in the face of widespread narco-violence.

Though attending a teachers college, especially Ayotzinapa, may seem like a risk these days, Maestro Olivares said that without the free education the students risk remaining uneducated and unskilled.

“Those who left the school probably won’t have a future because the normal school is precisely for ordinary people to study — the people here don’t have the resources to study and if they drop out of school they may have no other options,” said Maestro Olivares.

Mexico’s normal schools emerged in the wake of the Mexican Revolution as a way out of poverty for rural farmers and indigenous communities. Students blame Peña Nieto and his predecessor for the closure of most of the schools — only 15 of the original 46 remain. The federal government has pushed recently to privatize education. That, students say, would make it impossible for the poor to afford tuition.

“To the government, we are an unnecessary expense,” López said. “They have tried different ways to suppress and intimidate us and create uncertainty so that there are no upcoming aspiring students and close the normal schools.”

The “normalistas,” as the students are known, play a vital role in rural communities, said Maestro Olivares. Upon graduation, the teachers are assigned work in communities that often don’t have electricity or decent roads.

“Education is in tatters here,” she said. “Who will care for children in rural communities if there are no rural teachers attending the school?”

The 43 students disappeared on Sept. 26 while raising money in Iguala, Guerrero, for a trip to Mexico City to commemorate the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre, in which an estimated 300 students were killed when police forces opened fire on them. No one was ever held accountable for the deaths.

Confessions from local police and members of the drug gang Guerreros Unidos revealed that after the mayor of Iguala ordered a crackdown on the 43 students’ political activity, police handed them over to gang members. Austrian forensics experts confirmed last week that remains found in a mass grave matched one of the missing students. However, relatives of the missing have vowed to continue their search.

That spirit echoes through the Ayotzinapa teachers college, where some classmates of the missing have promised to continue their studies, no matter the risk.

“We’ll be here until the end,” said Armando. “We say to the government that we are not afraid and not tired. We’ll be here waiting for our peers … we cannot forget our fallen comrades.”

Solís echoed his classmate: “We will continue moving forward … no matter the consequences. We will not abandon this fight.”