As someone currently studying a second language, I am constantly in awe of how much I learn and the new skills I pick up. From added cultural context to a better understanding of how speech and language work within our minds, some of the most interesting lessons I’ve had have come from my Spanish coursework.
But fewer and fewer college students are choosing to specialize in language studies, losing out on these important lessons.
According to data from the Modern Language Association, the number of students enrolled in language programs other than English has steadily declined since 2009. Minnesota, for example, went from nearly 29,000 language students in 2013 down to roughly 22,400 in 2021.
Director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition Kate Paesani said some of the main factors pushing students away from studying languages are insecurities with their language skills and the sheer amount of time and effort it requires, with courses worth five credit hours seeming daunting for many students.
“Since scheduling and time are a huge concern for students, I think that we need to create smoother pathways to a major and minor and help facilitate double majoring in ways that make it easy for students, so they don’t feel like they’re overburdened by fulfilling requirements that only matter for one degree and not another,” Paesani said.
University department of German, Nordic, Slavic and Dutch lecturer Beth Kautz said both technological advances and secondary education policy affect how valuable students see a language education.
“In our school systems, K-12, when there are budget cuts, languages are often one of the first things to be cut,” Kautz said. “That sends a message right away in their childhood and youth that languages aren’t valued or important enough to be part of the school day.”
While I may be biased, the benefits of learning a second language are both undervalued and impossible to overstate.
Language education can bring a wide variety of benefits, from a useful career context to boosts in cognition to even a deeper sense of connection with fellow students, according to Paesani.
“We have smaller class sizes, and that can be really beneficial to students at a large university like [the University of] Minnesota,” Paesani said.
University director of French language instruction Lauren Goodspeed said shifting our idea of language study from just memorizing grammar to learning new perspectives could help stress the importance of studying languages other than your native language.
“I tell students even if you are never going to use your language skills, the sort of perspectives that you develop through language study are so important, because you’re learning to get outside yourself and see things from new perspectives,” Goodspeed said. “That’s relevant no matter what context you’re in, whether you’re speaking a different language or not.”
Beyond just being able to communicate with a whole new group of people that I wasn’t able to before studying Spanish, I have also learned so much about both the world and the United States through my studies. I even started working part-time with a local nonprofit, thanks to a connection I made through one of my courses.
But, as enrollments decrease, the future of opportunities like the ones I’ve had the privilege to experience is thrown into jeopardy.
As upper-division language courses already have small class sizes, declining enrollment has forced many universities’ language departments and educators to pivot toward promoting enrollment to maintain the range of courses offered, according to Goodspeed.
“There’s a danger that we won’t be able to offer as robust of programs, and I’m speaking nationally, not just at the University of Minnesota,” Goodspeed said. “Our language programs will not be as robust in the future unless we can make some sort of a change.”
Fewer students enrolled in language classes also makes it more difficult for both students and departments to plan course schedules, as fewer sections can be offered at more limited times, Kautz said.
To make matters worse for already-strained programs, the U.S. Department of Education announced last year that it would cut Title VI funding for foreign language and international studies programs, resulting in universities and other schools losing millions of dollars.
Goodspeed said the effects of cuts like these have only partially kicked in, with bigger downstream effects likely in the future.
“It’s no secret that we’ve seen a real divestment from any sort of internationally facing and internationally focused programming in the U.S. in the past few years,” Goodspeed said. “That has materially affected a lot of the grants that provide material support for language programs at all levels in the U.S.”
Even though our current focus may be on more popular majors like computer science, psychology and business, language studies provide life and career skills that are essential for navigating our globalized world.
Being bilingual can increase people’s average wages, and employers have predicted that the need for multilingual workers will only increase in the next few years.
Given the tumultuous job market and our globalized digital world, students should seek every advantage possible to get a leg up, and language skills provide a massive advantage. So, it’s up to us to rethink how we view and value language classes.
Many surveyed language students said they valued things like practical learning opportunities, study abroad programs and discussions of relevant topics in our society within language education, according to Paesani.
“If we can think creatively about integrating those things while still building on the disciplinary expertise of our faculty, that might go far in improving enrollments and encouraging students to continue on with language study,” Paesani said.
Instilling a love of language learning in Generation Z may not be easy, but it’ll be worth the cost if students are more prepared for the world after college. We may grumble about the language requirements in places like the University’s College of Liberal Arts, but like eating vegetables or working out, we should recognize it’s for our own benefit.
