[lg policy] US: Foreign-Language Enrollments Rise Over All, but Decline in Graduate Programs

[Harold Schiffman]

Foreign-Language Enrollments Rise Over All, but Decline in Graduate Programs

By Travis Kaya

Foreign-language enrollments at American colleges and universities
have continued a climbing trend that began more than a decade ago,
posting a 6.6-percent increase between the fall of 2006 and the fall
of 2009, according to a new report from the Modern Language
Association. Even as undergraduate enrollments in foreign-language
courses reached an all-time high, however, graduate-level enrollments
declined for the first time in a decade, which association officials
said could mean a shortage of qualified foreign-language instructors
for the next generation of students. And graduate enrollments may drop
even further as budget woes leave more foreign-language programs on
the chopping block.

"Opportunities to study languages may be threatened by program cuts,"
Rosemary G. Feal, the association's executive director, said in a
conference call with reporters. "This is a vulnerable time for
language study." The latest MLA report, "Enrollments in Languages
Other Than English in United States Institutions of Higher Education,
Fall 2009," is based on data from the registrars of 2,514 colleges and
universities, which represent 99 percent of all American
higher-education institutions with foreign-language programs. The
report compares enrollment data taken in the fall of 2009 with data
collected in the fall of 2006.

While Spanish, French, and German posted modest enrollment gains to
remain the most-studied languages, their rate of growth was eclipsed
by large increases in American Sign Language, Korean, Chinese, and
Portuguese enrollments. Among the 15 most popular languages, Arabic
saw the largest bump—a 46-percent increase—overtaking Latin and
Russian to become the eighth most-studied language.

Languages not ranked in the top 15 saw a 20.8-percent spike in overall
enrollments, compared with a 31.2-percent increase in the previous
period studied, from the fall of 2002 and the fall of 2006. And 35
more languages were being taught in the fall of 2009 than in the fall
of 2006.
The upward trend for all foreign-language enrollments started in 1995,
but that growth may be reaching a plateau. Although the number of
students taking foreign-language courses is higher than ever, growth
has slowed significantly since previous surveys in 2006 and 2002. The
6.6-percent increase in the latest survey compares with gains of 12.9
percent between 2002 and 2006, and 17 percent between 1998 and 2002.

Decline in Offerings

MLA officials attributed the slowing rate of foreign-language growth
to changes in student enrollment over all and the decline in
foreign-language offerings at colleges and universities across the
country. "There may be some block to increased enrollment if
sufficient sections aren't being offered," said Russell A. Berman, the
association's first vice president and a professor of German studies
and comparative literature at Stanford University.

MLA officials said program cutbacks could be especially damaging in
graduate programs, effectively shutting off the supply of qualified
foreign-language instructors. "We have to make sure that this pipeline
remains strong in order to meet student demand," Ms. Feal said. "There
is some concern that students may face restricted access."

Graduate enrollments in foreign-language courses saw a 6.7-percent
decrease between 2006 and 2009, compared with a 4.8-percent increase
in undergraduate enrollments at four-year institutions and a
14-percent increase at two-year institutions. And while undergraduate
enrollments have increased by 47.8 percent since 1995, the number of
enrollments in graduate-level language programs in 2009—approximately
38,000—have stayed largely static over the same period.

Ms. Feal said increasing graduate enrollment—and supporting programs
for growing undergraduate interest in foreign languages—will depend on
the job market for language Ph.D.'s. However, Ms. Feal said today's
graduate students are being dissuaded from pursuing advanced
foreign-language degrees as more and more colleges move
foreign-language faculty off the tenure track. "Institutions are
creating circumstances for languages not to thrive," she said.

Bob Peckham, a professor of French at the University of Tennessee at
Martin and a national advocate for foreign-language programs, said the
future of foreign-language education will depend on whether
institutions see value in their language programs—not on student
demand alone. "All of this depends on the status of foreign language
as a core program," he said. "But it's very difficult to tell the
administration that we're doing something that has instrumental
value."

http://chronicle.com/article/Enrollments-in-Graduate/125645/

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 Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
 Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

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