The pie charts show the proportions of American university students who could speak languages other than English in 2005 and 2015.
Overall, by 2015 fewer students spoke only English while the number of Spanish speakers rose noticeably. Other languages showed only small changes over the period.
In 2005, 45% of students spoke only English; this fell to 30% in 2015. Spanish increased from 18% to 29%, representing the largest rise. French speakers rose slightly from 8% to 10%. The proportion of students speaking German remained essentially unchanged over the ten years.
Students who spoke two additional languages fell marginally, from 14% to just under 12%. Taken together, these shifts show a clear movement away from monolingualism, largely driven by the increase in Spanish speakers.
