&#62; There's small payoff for an American to study a 2nd language.<p>Good point - never thought of it like that.<p>&#62; I'd like to see Spanish mandatory or commonly studied to fluency, given the demographic changes in America.<p>Really? I'd say going the opposite would have potentially more advantages. Mandarin, Russian, Hindi, Japanese, or Korean - something where you'd be one of the relatively few Americans bilingual in both languages and the country isn't fully bilingual in English speakers seems like it'd be more valuable than something in which quite a few Americans are fluent and bilingual.