Rosemary G. Feal, executive director of the Modern Language Association, said that the growing diversity of languages offered on campuses is “wonderfully encouraging.”
Yet the overall drop in language enrollments is not cause for dismay, said Rosemary G. Feal, executive director of the MLA. She pointed out that, compared to historic trends, language enrollments have shown an upward trajectory since the mid-1980s. In fact, the numbers are slightly higher now than they were in a 2006 MLA survey. Viewed in that light, this year’s overall decline might be seen merely as a “blip” in an overall positive trend.
“Even though we have been seeing a decline, and we are concerned about that, we’re also aware that, looking just a few years back, these enrollment figures are very much in keeping with the highs that we’ve reached,” Feal said.
The MLA has been tracking enrollment numbers in its Language Enrollment Database since 1958, which offers a precise and easily accessible accounting of enrollment numbers by institution and year. This is the first report out since the recession.
Contracting enrollments in general humanities have not helped the situation; nor have vocational pressures on students to seek high-paying career track majors; or institutional disinvestment in language programs.
“We’ve known that there have been both budgetary and programmatic issues on campuses that have presented challenges to language programs,” Feal said.
While some institutions may be reducing their language programs from a major to a minor, or scrapping them altogether, this is not universal. The study found that other campuses are creating programs in more diverse and less Eurocentric languages such as Korean, Portuguese, and Chinese. Some HBCUs, for example, such as Morehouse and Spelman, have been developing Chinese language and cultural programs.
