Foreign Language Requirements in Ph.D. Programs in Agricultural Economics

Evidence suggests that the foreign language requirement, while consuming a large block of student time, has not functioned well in providing needed professional skills. The low skill levels resulting from these programs have declined to nonfunctional levels in a majority of cases, have concentrated on less important reading skills rather than verbal skills, and have been predominantly in languages which are not needed by the professional worker whose primary needs are now—and will be in the future—for work in foreign areas outside of Western Europe. Evidence suggests the desirability of concentrating on verbal skills (fluency) in one language in instances where language needs can be anticipated and substituting proficiency in collateral fields when specific linguistic needs cannot be anticipated.