The Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) Program is a fully-funded summer study abroad opportunity for American college and university students to learn languages essential to America's engagement with the world.

The CLS Program is part of a U.S. government effort to expand dramatically the number of Americans studying and mastering critical foreign languages. Students of diverse disciplines and majors are encouraged to apply. Participants are expected to continue their language study beyond the scholarship period, and later apply their critical language skills in their future professional careers.

Each summer, CLS provides rigorous academic instruction in fifteen languages that are critical to America's national security and economic prosperity. The languages that CLS currently offers is Arabic, Azerbaijani, Bangla, Chinese, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Punjabi, Russian, Swahili, Turkish, and Urdu.

The CLS Application for the 2021 Summer Programs is now available! Applications are due November 17, 2020 at 8:00pm Eastern. To learn more about the program, view one of our upcoming webinars, and start your application today, please go to https://clscholarship.org/apply. 

For any questions about the program, please email the CLS Program at cls@americancouncils.org or call at 202-833-7522 or 1-877-257-9922 (toll-free).