I don't know why I had to read this on Above the Law (no, not that), but it seems that UM Law school is implementing a very good change in the tuition structure which will ensure our students can take language (and other) courses in the University without extra charge. See University of Miami School of Law Slows Growth of Tuition.
I often tell students that they enhance their employability for any international work, and also much domestic work, if they speak another language well. And I tell students who have a basic grasp of a foreign language — often it's locals who speak Spanish but don't write it as well as they speak it — that they can get law school credit for advanced language courses in the college. (Last I checked they can't get credit for very basic language courses.)
But students sometimes reported that registration wasn't simple — and one of the issues was that sometimes the law school passed on the extra tuition charges the college charged it for those courses.
I don't know if the Dean's announcement means we have worked out a way to avoid those charges or if we will be eating them — Above the Law seems to get more news about Miami than I do these days — but either way this is good for students who want to brush up their language skills and signal competence to future employers.
(We also teach some introductory civil law classes in Spanish, which I recommend to students with at least near fluency so that they can acquire a basic legal vocabulary.)
Dean White's memo to students — which either wasn't sent to faculty or I missed it in the crush of work — is included below (as reported on ATL).
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