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The tables below provide a list of second languages most frequently taught in American schools and colleges. They reflect the popularity of these languages in terms of the total number of enrolled students in the United States.
Below are the top second languages studied in public K-12 schools (i.e., primary and secondary schools). The tables correspond to the 18.5% (some 8.9 million) of all K-12 students in the U.S. (about 49 million) who take foreign-language classes. [1]
| Rank | Language | Enrollments | Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Spanish | 6,418,331 | 72.06% |
| 2 | French | 1,254,243 | 14.08% |
| align=center | 4.43% | ||
| 4 | Latin | 205,158 | 2.30% |
| 5 | Japanese | 72,845 | 0.82% |
| 6 | Italian | 65,058 | 0.73% |
| 7 | Chinese | 59,860 | 0.67% |
| 8 | American Sign Language | 41,579 | 0.46% |
| 9 | Russian | 12,389 | 0.14% |
| Others [2] | 255,825 | 2.87% | |
| Total | 8,907,201 | 100% |
Below are the top foreign languages studied in American institutions of higher education (i.e., colleges and universities), based on fall 2016 enrollments. [3]
| Rank | Language | Enrollments | Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Spanish | 712,240 | 50.2% |
| 2 | French | 175,667 | 12.4% |
| 3 | American Sign Language | 107,060 | 7.6% |
| 4 | German | 80,594 | 5.7% |
| 5 | Japanese | 68,810 | 4.9% |
| 6 | Italian | 56,743 | 4.0% |
| 7 | Chinese | 53,069 | 3.7% |
| 8 | Arabic | 31,554 | 2.2% |
| 9 | Latin | 24,866 | 1.8% |
| 10 | Russian | 20,353 | 1.4% |
| 11 | Korean | 13,936 | 0.9% |
| 12 | Greek, Ancient | 13,264 | 0.9% |
| 13 | Portuguese | 9,827 | 0.7% |
| 14 | Hebrew, Biblical | 9,587 | 0.7% |
| 15 | Hebrew, Modern | 5,521 | 0.4% |
| Others | 34,830 | 2.4% | |
| Total | 1,417,921 | 100% |
| Year | Languages | Source | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | % | 2 | % | 3 | % | 4 | % | 5 | % | ||
| 2004–2005 | Spanish | 72.9 | French | 15.0 | German | 4.2 | Latin | 2.6 | Japanese | 0.7 | [1] |
| 2007–2008 | Spanish | 72.1 | French | 14.1 | German | 4.4 | Latin | 2.3 | Japanese | 0.8 | [1] |
| Year | Languages | Source | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | % | 2 | % | 3 | % | 4 | % | 5 | % | ||
| 1960 | French | 37.9 | Spanish | 29.7 | German | 24.2 | Russian | 5.1 | Italian | 1.8 | [3] |
| 1968 | French | 34.4 | Spanish | 32.3 | German | 19.2 | Russian | 3.7 | Latin | 3.0 | |
| 1980 | Spanish | 41.0 | French | 26.9 | German | 13.7 | Italian | 3.8 | Latin | 2.7 | |
| 1990 | Spanish | 45.1 | French | 23.0 | German | 11.3 | Italian | 4.2 | Japanese | 3.9 | |
| 1995 | Spanish | 53.2 | French | 18.0 | German | 8.5 | Japanese | 3.9 | Italian | 3.8 | |
| 1998 | Spanish | 55.6 | French | 17.0 | German | 7.6 | Italian | 4.2 | Japanese | 3.7 | |
| 2002 | Spanish | 53.4 | French | 14.5 | German | 6.5 | Italian | 4.6 | American Sign | 4.4 | |
| 2006 | Spanish | 52.2 | French | 13.1 | German | 6.0 | American Sign | 5.1 | Italian | 5.0 | |
| 2009 | Spanish | 51.4 | French | 12.9 | German | 5.7 | American Sign | 5.5 | Italian | 4.8 | |
| 2013 | Spanish | 50.6 | French | 12.7 | American Sign | 7.0 | German | 5.5 | Italian | 4.6 | |
| 2016 | Spanish | 50.2 | French | 12.4 | American Sign | 7.6 | German | 5.7 | Japanese | 4.9 | |
The National Defense Education Act (NDEA) was signed into law on September 2, 1958, providing funding to United States education institutions at all levels.
In the United States, education is provided in public and private schools and by individuals through homeschooling. State governments set overall educational standards, often mandate standardized tests for K–12 public school systems and supervise, usually through a board of regents, state colleges, and universities. The bulk of the $1.3 trillion in funding comes from state and local governments, with federal funding accounting for about $260 billion in 2021 compared to around $200 billion in past years.
The French language is spoken as a minority language in the United States. Roughly 2.1 million Americans over the age of five reported speaking the language at home in a federal 2010 estimate, making French the fourth most-spoken language in the nation behind English, Spanish, and Chinese.
International students, or foreign students, are students who undertake all or part of their tertiary education in a country other than their own and move to that country for the purpose of studying.
Secondary education is the last six or seven years of statutory formal education in the United States. It culminates with twelfth grade. Whether it begins with sixth grade or seventh grade varies by state and sometimes by school district.
Education in China is primarily managed by the state-run public education system, which falls under the Ministry of Education. All citizens must attend school for a minimum of nine years, known as nine-year compulsory education, which is funded by the government.
This article details the geographical distribution of speakers of the German language, regardless of the legislative status within the countries where it is spoken. In addition to the German-speaking area in Europe, German-speaking minorities are present in many countries and on all six inhabited continents.
Education in Iran is centralized and divided into K-12 education plus higher education. Elementary and secondary education is supervised by the Ministry of Education and higher education is under the supervision of Ministry of Science, Research and Technology and Ministry of Health and Medical Education for medical sciences. As of 2016, around 86% of the Iranian adult population is literate. This rate increases to 97% among young adults ages between 15 and 24 without any gender consideration. By 2007, Iran had a student-to-workforce population ratio of 10.2%, standing among the countries with the highest ratio in the world.
Education in North Korea is universal and state-funded schooling by the government. As of 2021, UNESCO Institute for Statistics does not report any data for North Korea's literacy rates. Some children go through one year of kindergarten, four years of primary education, six years of secondary education, and then on to university. The North Korean state claims its national literacy rate for citizens aged 15 and older is 100 percent.
A modern language is any human language that is currently in use as a native language. The term is used in language education to distinguish between languages which are used for day-to-day communication and dead classical languages such as Latin and Classical Chinese, which are studied for their cultural or linguistic value. SIL Ethnologue defines a living language as "one that has at least one speaker for whom it is their first language".
In the United States, higher education is an optional stage of formal learning following secondary education. It is also referred as post-secondary education, third-stage, third-level, or tertiary education. It covers stages 5 to 8 on the International ISCED 2011 scale. It is delivered at 4,360 Title IV degree-granting institutions, known as colleges or universities. These may be public or private universities, research universities, liberal arts colleges, community colleges, or for-profit colleges. US higher education is loosely regulated by the government and by several third-party organizations.
Education in the Syrian Arab Republic is given the necessary attention and care by the Syrian state, as the Syrian Constitution guarantees the right to education to every citizen, which is compulsory and free at primary level. It is free but not compulsory at the secondary level and higher education is available for a symbolic fee. the primary level includes 2 stages, 1 & 2 which include grades 1 to 6 while the secondary school includes grades 7 to 10
Education in Lebanon is regulated by the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MEHE). In Lebanon, the main three languages, English and/or French with Arabic are taught from early years in schools. English or French are the mandatory media of instruction for mathematics and sciences for all schools. Education is compulsory from age 3 to 14.
Education in the Philippines is compulsory at the basic education level and is grouped into three levels: kindergarten, elementary school, junior high school, and senior high school. The educational system is managed by three government agencies by level of education: the Department of Education (DepEd) for basic education; the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) for higher education; and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) for technical and vocational education. Public education is funded by the national government.
Provision of education in the UAE began shortly after the establishment of the federation with the inception of the first university in Al Ain, Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates University. Since then, the country has progressed with efforts of ensuring high literacy rates, modern programs and women's share in education. It works on improving its youths education which is why the agenda 2021 has been set. The UAE currently devotes approximately 25 percent of total federal government spending to education. As of 2019, the overall literacy rate is 96%.
The State of Kuwait, located at the head of the Persian Gulf, supports an educational policy that seeks to provide an opportunity to all children, irrespective of their social class, including children with special needs. Kuwait was ranked 63rd on the Human Development Index report for 2011 by the United Nations Development Programme, placing Kuwait above the regional average.
Language education in the United States has historically involved teaching American English to immigrants; and Spanish, French, Latin, Italian or German to native English speakers. Bilingual education was sponsored in some districts, often contentiously. Japanese language education in the United States increased following the Japanese post-war economic miracle. This was a period between World War II and the Cold War, when Japan had the second largest economy in the world. To participate, the government increased funding to teaching Japanese in schools. Chinese as a second language began to be taught more frequently in response to the reform and opening of the People's Republic of China; this has included funding from the PRC Government. In the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, US Senator Norm Coleman called Arabic "the next strategic language".
The higher education bubble in the United States is the possibility that excessive investment in higher education could have negative repercussions in the broader economy. Although college tuition payments are rising, the supply of college graduates in many fields of study is exceeding the demand for their skills, which aggravates graduate unemployment and underemployment while increasing the burden of student loan defaults on financial institutions and taxpayers. Moreover, the higher education bubble might be even more serious than load of student debts. Without safeguards in place for funding and loans, the government risks creating a moral hazard in which schools charge students expensive tuition fees without offering them marketable skills in return. The claim has generally been used to justify cuts to public higher education spending, tax cuts, or a shift of government spending towards law enforcement and national security. There is a further concern that having an excess supply of college graduates exacerbates political instability, historically linked to having a bulge in the number of young degree holders.
Arabic is the fastest-growing foreign language taught at U.S. colleges and universities, a trend mirrored at the University of Iowa.
