Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) Program

The Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) Program partners with universities and nonprofits around the globe to provide cohorts of U.S. students an opportunity to study the language and culture in a country/location where the target language is commonly spoken. The CLS Program, through its CLS Spark initiative, provides beginner-level virtual instruction for Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Russian for competitively selected U.S. undergraduate students whose home campuses do not offer these languages. CLS scholars are expected to continue their language study beyond the scholarship and apply their critical language skills in their future careers. 

The U.S. Department of State sponsors and oversees the CLS Program, including CLS Spark, as part of a larger U.S. government effort to expand the number of Americans studying and mastering foreign languages that are critical to our national security, economic prosperity, and engagement with the world.