Language students facing uneven access to universities

Of the 73 universities in England with average entry requirements (or tariffs) below AAB at A-level, only 22 now offer languages, according to the most detailed mapping of language courses yet by a researcher at the University of Leeds. This is causing cold spots to grow in the north, east and south-west of England.

This is a social justice issue – lower grades and location shouldn’t be barriers to studying languages.

Professor Becky Muradás-Taylor

Cold spots are areas where students would need to travel more than 60km to attend their course of choice. These disproportionately affect people who can’t afford to leave home, or need to stay with family because of disabilities, caring responsibilities, or being a mature student. Students from some ethnic minority backgrounds are also more likely to commute to university.

The research, published in the Language Learning Journal on 20 October, was carried out by Becky Muradás-Taylor, Professor of Languages and Linguistics and Director of Programme Design at the University of Leeds School of Languages, Cultures and Societies.

Study author Professor Muradás-Taylor said: “While language programme closures are devastating at any university, it is particularly concerning that the results show such a gap in choice between universities with higher and lower entry requirements. At lower-tariff universities, there are large cold spots in the east, south-west and north of England. This is a social justice issue – lower grades and location shouldn’t be barriers to studying languages.

“To help fix this, the research recommends that the Government create a small fund for lower tariff universities to ensure language provision is spread more equitably across the country. If just three more lower-tariff universities in the identified cold spots added language courses, the social justice issues would be significantly reduced."

Caption: Map shows estimated accessibility to universities offering language degrees. 22 universities with entry tariffs below AAB currently offer languages. A hypothetical scenario with three additional universities increases this to 25. Darker blue areas indicate ‘cold spots’ in the south-west, north and east of England. Credit: Professor Becky Muradás-Taylor.

Mapping language provision

While previous studies have mapped cold spots while grouping several languages together, this research individually mapped the 10 most widely taught languages at universities in England – Arabic, Chinese, Classics (Ancient Greek and Latin), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish – plus British Sign Language (BSL) and Korean.

Between 2023 and 2026, three universities have stopped offering language degrees. The main cold spots uncovered by the research were: in the south-west for BSL, Japanese and Korean, and a cold spot in the midlands for Arabic and Japanese. For lower tariff universities, there is clustering in the south-east for German and Italian. The north-east has very poor provision and there are no lower tariff universities offering languages in the south-west.

Caption: Spanish and French are the most widely available language subjects, offered by 39 and 38 universities respectively. German is offered by 28 universities, Chinese by 24, Italian by 19, and Japanese by 17. Arabic, Portuguese and Russian are each offered by 13 universities. British Sign Language (BSL) and Korean are the least widely available, with three institutions each.

Professor Muradás-Taylor added: “It’s not all bad news for languages. Some language programmes have launched since my last analysis in 2023. This research also shows that previous cold spot maps overestimated course gaps because some data was unavailable.”

The way forward

Higher-tariff universities are disincentivised from reducing their entry requirements, as this has a negative impact on rankings and, in turn, future student numbers. While higher tariff universities do lower their tariffs to fill specific courses, this varies from year to year, and if programmes at lower tariff universities close, it can leave students with nowhere to go. So, the research shows the solution for this must focus on lower-tariff universities.

Professor Muradás-Taylor hopes the data will be useful to any university considering expanding their language provision or having to campaign against closure.

This research addresses a critical challenge not just for languages in the UK but for humanities disciplines more broadly.

Professor Emma Cayley, Head of the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies

While higher education faces huge challenges, there are some quick fixes that could make finding language courses easier. In the research, several universities’ course search features did not return results for specific languages, despite them being offered.

Professor Muradás-Taylor added: “Languages are increasingly offered with other subjects at English universities. But this can cause confusion as many universities’ websites don’t have the infrastructure to clarify the various modules and pathways available to students.”

The research recommends that universities:

• Be clear about which languages can be combined with which subjects.
• Ensure that searching for individual language names returns information about joint honours courses and umbrella programmes such as Modern Languages.
• Include language modules in the list of compulsory modules in the course structure (with a choice of two levels or various languages as appropriate) – applicants don’t need to know that the modules are actually coded as compulsory, but they do need to know that they will study their language(s) in each year of their programme
• If language teaching is delivered as part of an integrated language and culture/linguistics module, ensure that module titles reflect this.

Professor Emma Cayley, Chair of the University Council for Languages and Head of School of Languages, Cultures and Societies at Leeds, said: “This research addresses a critical challenge not just for languages in the UK but for humanities disciplines more broadly. Arguably, it is not demand for the humanities that is waning, but access to school teaching in these subjects.

“As Professor Muradás-Taylor demonstrates, this is a social justice issue affecting certain populations and areas of the UK more than others. At Leeds, we have become involved in an initiative called Languages For All, sponsored by the Reach Foundation, to provide local schools with an affordable way to offer A-level language tuition in languages and to nurture enthusiastic and talented language learners who may then consider taking it to degree-level.”

Further information

‘A cold spot analysis of language degrees in England by language: Implications for sector leaders, government and universities’ by Becky Muradás-Taylor was published in the Language Learning Journal on 20 October. DOI: 10.1080/09571736.2026.2735958

For more information, please contact Mia Saunders in the University of Leeds press office via [email protected].