Funding cuts and changes in education policies have led to a sharp reduction in the number of Americans studying foreign languages at the same time the government and business are demanding more employees with language skills.

[The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages] quoted the American Council on Education as saying overall foreign language enrollment in U.S. higher education fell from16 percent of students 1960 to 8 percent in 2002.

“Fewer than 1 percent of American graduate students are studying languages deemed by the federal government to be critical to national security,” said Keith Cothrun, a German teacher and ACTFL president, at a briefing at the National Press Club.

A 2002 survey by Health Companies International, a research firm, showed that Americans business executives had the lowest average number of languages spoken – 1.4. In the Netherlands, that number was 3.9, followed by Sweden at 3.4 and Brazil at 2.9. Just above the United States at the bottom of the list of 18 countries were three other English-speaking countries: the United Kingdom (1.5), New Zealand (1.6) and Canada (1.8).

The U.S. government needs 34,000 employees with foreign language skills in 80 agencies, according to ACTFL. A 2002 Government Accountability Office study found that the Army had serious shortfalls of translators and interpreters in five of six critical languages – Arabic, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Persian-Farsi and Russian.

Web sites for the Transportation Security Administration, Homeland Security Department and a government-wide job site list vacancies in those categories that pay from $80,000 to $90,000 per year.

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