The Quiet Return of Required Foreign Language at US Universities
Required language courses were widely cut after 2008. A growing number of universities are quietly bringing them back, often with different goals than before.
Through the 1990s and early 2000s, foreign language requirements were standard at US universities. Two to four semesters of a language were required for graduation in most arts and sciences programs. After the 2008 financial crisis, with budgets under pressure and enrollment under threat, many institutions reduced or eliminated these requirements. By 2018, fewer than half of US undergraduates were required to study a foreign language to graduate.
The trend has begun to reverse. A 2026 report from the Modern Language Association documents that 64 US universities reinstated or expanded language requirements between 2022 and 2025. The reinstatement is not a return to the old form. The new requirements are typically more flexible, more practical in orientation, and more often paired with explicit goals about cognitive or professional benefits.
The New Justifications
Old language requirements were defended on cultural and humanistic grounds: a liberal arts education should include the ability to read another tradition. The reinstated requirements are more often justified on cognitive and labor market terms. Universities cite evidence that bilingualism is associated with measurable cognitive benefits, that employers in certain sectors value language ability, and that language study correlates with improved overall academic performance.
“We did not bring this back as a defense of tradition,” said Dr. Heloise Marchetti, who led Boston College’s reinstatement of language requirements in 2023. “We brought it back because the data on cognitive development and labor market outcomes had become hard to ignore.”
What the Cognitive Evidence Shows
The cognitive case for language study has strengthened over the past decade. A 2024 meta-analysis in the journal Bilingualism: Language and Cognition reviewed 142 studies and found consistent evidence that sustained second-language study is associated with improvements in working memory, attentional control, and task-switching performance. The effects are modest but reliable, and they appear to scale with depth of study rather than appearing at low thresholds of exposure.
The evidence is not unanimous. Some researchers have argued that the cognitive effects of bilingualism are smaller than initially claimed or that they are limited to specific contexts. But the overall pattern has held up well enough that universities making evidence-based decisions about curriculum increasingly include language in their reasoning.
The Labor Market Angle
Labor market evidence is more mixed. Across the US economy as a whole, foreign language skills produce small earnings premiums of 1 to 3 percent. The premium is much larger in specific sectors: international business, foreign service, healthcare in multilingual regions, and certain technical fields. Universities reinstating language requirements often cite the sector-specific effects and emphasize the option value of language skills for students whose career paths are uncertain.
“Most of our students will work in environments where multilingual ability is at least useful,” said Dr. Marchetti. “Many will work in environments where it is essential. The cost of not having the skill, when you need it, is higher than the cost of acquiring it during undergraduate education.”
The Form of the New Requirements
Reinstated requirements often look different from the old ones. Many programs now accept demonstrated proficiency through standardized testing rather than seat time, which allows heritage speakers to satisfy requirements without retaking material they already know. Several universities now accept a broader range of languages, including American Sign Language, Mandarin, Arabic, and Korean alongside the traditional European focus.
Some programs have adopted “proficiency plus context” requirements: students must reach a defined proficiency level (typically intermediate-mid on the ACTFL scale) and must complete one course taught in the target language about its cultural or scholarly context. The combination is intended to produce more durable language ability than seat-time requirements alone.
Student Reactions
Student reception has been more positive than the universities expected. A 2025 survey at Boston College after its requirement was reinstated found that 67 percent of students who had completed the requirement reported a positive view, and 71 percent said they were likely to continue studying the language beyond the requirement. The numbers are higher than student satisfaction with most general education requirements.
The reception is partly generational. Students entering university in 2025 grew up with multilingual streaming media, language learning apps, and exposure to global content in ways that earlier students did not. The argument that languages are useful no longer requires the explanation it once did.
The Faculty Capacity Question
A constraint on reinstatement is faculty capacity. Many universities cut language faculty during the era when requirements were reduced. Rebuilding the capacity to teach four semesters of language to large numbers of students requires hiring or contracting that several universities have not yet undertaken at full scale.
Programs that have used technology-enhanced instruction effectively, including conversation exchange partnerships and synchronous online sessions with native speaker tutors, have been able to expand capacity without proportional faculty growth. But the technology is a supplement to faculty instruction, not a replacement, and high-quality language programs continue to require trained instructors at sustainable workloads.
What This Means for Students
For prospective students choosing universities, the language requirement is increasingly a useful signal of institutional priorities. Universities that have reinstated requirements have typically made other decisions that signal investment in undergraduate education broadly. For current students at universities without requirements, the research on cognitive and labor market benefits suggests that elective language study is worth the time, even when it is not required.
The broader story is that several decisions made under budget pressure after 2008 are being reconsidered as universities take a longer view of what their graduates need. Language is one of several areas where the trend is visible.
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