The application for the U. S. Department of State’s 2025 Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) Program and CLS Spark virtual initiative is now open! We welcome your students to apply this year to learn a critical language on a funded overseas or virtual summer program.
Through the CLS Program, U.S. undergraduate and graduate students spend eight to ten weeks over the summer studying one of a dozen critical languages: Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Swahili, Turkish, and Urdu. The program is designed to promote rapid language gains through intensive language instruction, host community engagement, and structured cultural activities in a cohort-based setting.