Data from MLA censuses of language enrollments in United States institutions of higher education. Donald L. Dyer, associate dean for faculty and academic affairs and former chair of modern languages at the University of Mississippi, said institutions will often combine multiple languages into a single department to save on administrative costs. Read more... Visit the Enrollments home page on the MLA site for additional enrollment links. “A lot of administrations will say, ‘If we need to cut somewhere, let’s cut certain things,’” namely languages and the humanities more broadly, Dyer said.
MLA data show foreign language study is on the decline, but it's unclear what comes first: institutional disinvestment in language programs or waning student interest. The MLA’s comprehensive study describes lower- and upper-level undergraduate and graduate course enrollments in languages other than English in summer and fall 2016 reported by 2,547 AA-, BA-, MA-, and PhD-granting colleges and universities in the United States. With the exception of Korean, the most commonly taught languages showed especially sharp declines in enrollments at the advanced level from 2013-16.
To that point, additional MLA data show the percentage of four-year colleges and universities requiring students to take courses in languages other than English dropped 17 percentage points between 1995 and 2010, to about half of all institutions.
Enrollment Data Visit the Language Enrollment Database, 1958–2016, to create tables about language enrollments in US colleges and universities drawing on data from the MLA's twenty-five enrollment censuses. Even as institutions report accelerated, comprehensive internationalization efforts, graduate and undergraduate foreign language enrollments are on the decline, according to a recent report from the Modern Language Association. the modern language association of america SINCE 1958, the Modern Language Association (MLA) has gathered and analyzed data on undergraduate and graduate course enrollments in languages other than English in United States colleges and universities. By contrast, Dyer said, Ole Miss has become something of an unlikely destination for students who wish to obtain superior language proficiency. The MLA’s new report says things have gotten worse. He added, “We view these languages as something of a jewel of the university, and we want to get them right.” The university has increased contact time to six hours weekly in many language courses, for example, and the Chinese program employs graduate students who are native speakers to work with students on domain-specific proficiency.
In recent years, MLA has advocated for more opportunities for heritage learners to study languages they may speak with their families.
For the first time since about 1995, and after a period of steady growth, it said, overall enrollments -- including those in major European languages such as Spanish -- were down, by 6.7 percent since 2009. Colleges and universities that invest in creating strong language programs have spurred cultural and even economic growth in their regions, since employers want employees with language and cultural skills, she added. Examples abound beyond the South. “You need to parade your successes -- you need to show people what students can do. In the interim, MLA executive director Paula Krebs said that students continue to be interested in languages, “and when institutions support language instruction, students take language courses.”, Looking beyond the trend line, Krebs said, “Many institutions have had increases in enrollments.” And when MLA releases its full report, she said, it will highlight what’s “going right at the institutions with increased enrollments, so other colleges can see how to make strategic investments that will produce stronger enrollments.”.
Enrollments do ebb and flow over time.
With a few exceptions among Ole Miss’s 11-language department, Dyer said, “our enrollments in language classes are as high as they’ve ever been, and we’re continually adding sections of these languages over years.”. In any case, some campuses -- generally those making investments in programs -- are bucking the trend. Then some will look to cut majors to save on offering lower-enrollment upper-division courses. “I’ve seen in our region a major de-emphasis on language teaching.”.
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The MLA isn’t sure yet -- a forthcoming report seeks to offer more analysis. Results of a survey of faculty members and students presented at last year’s annual meeting of the MLA also called on language departments to transform their curricula in ways that “situate language study in cultural, historical, geographic and cross-cultural frames.” Survey respondents also urged the end of a “two-tiered” instructional approach, in which adjuncts teach lower-level courses while tenured and tenure-track professors teach upper-level literature classes.