Enrollments in Languages Other than English in United States Institutions of Higher Education, Fall 2009
Author: Furman, Nelly
Date: 2010-12-00
Type: Numerical/Quantitative Data
Subjects: Higher Education,Language Enrollment,Enrollment Trends,Colleges,Trend Analysis,Educational Trends,Second Language Instruction,School Surveys,College Second Language Programs,Second Languages,Geographic Distribution,Uncommonly Taught Languages,Graduate Study,Undergraduate Study

Since 1958, the Modern Language Association (MLA), with the continuous support of the United States Department of Education, has gathered and analyzed data on undergraduate and graduate course enrollments in languages other than English in United States colleges and universities. The previous survey examined language enrollments in fall 2006; here the MLA presents its twenty-second survey in the series, describing trends in language course enrollments in fall 2009. Beginning in October 2009, the authors contacted 2,802 United States postsecondary institutions, using the MLA database of all institutions that teach languages other than English. The authors supplemented the MLA list of institutions with data from the National Center for Education Statistics, the 2009 Higher Education Directory, and the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, to make sure that all accredited, not-for-profit institutions were accounted for. Eighty-two institutions proved ineligible (this group includes branch campuses whose enrollment numbers were reported with those of the main campus), reducing the total number of eligible institutions to 2,720. After numerous requests extending across a ten-month period, 26 of these institutions declined to participate; of the 2,694 eligible institutions that reported, 180 had no enrollments in languages other than English. In the end, the fall 2009 enrollments presented in this report are collected from a total of 2,514 AA-, BA-, MA-, and PhD-granting colleges and universities, representing 99.0% of all higher education institutions offering languages in the United States. The 99.0% response rate continues the high level of response that has been a goal of MLA enrollment surveys, allowing the authors to suggest that these numbers constitute a census as well as a survey. Approximately one-third of the responses came from two-year colleges and two-thirds from four-year institutions. No language courses were offered in 6.5% of responding four-year institutions and in 7.6% of responding two-year colleges. In conjunction with this survey, the authors have added the 2009 enrollment figures to the MLA Language Map, which uses data from the 2000 United States census to display the locations and concentrations of speakers of twenty-nine languages other than English spoken in the United States. The census data are based on responses to the question, &quot;Does this person speak a language other than English at home?&quot; The Language Map illustrates the percentage and numbers of speakers in all counties and zip codes. With the addition of the 2009 enrollment data, users of the Language Map can now locate language programs and detailed information about course enrollments in the context of where these languages are spoken in the United States. (Contains 8 figures, 21 tables and 3 notes.)