<p>emerlus - lots of people have that perception and it was partially true 10-15 years ago -but not for the reason you think! A generation of Latin teachers was retiring and there were no replacements available! Somehow people got the idea that college should be about getting a job credential rather than an education and enrollment in Classics programs (and other humanities) shrank. (As did interest in underpaid entry level teaching positions.)</p>
<p>Today the Classics departments in major universities are actually growing and competition to get into graduate programs has become absolutely insane. In any given year several hundred Latin and Greek secondary school jobs are available (there are already 37 posted on the ACL job site for calendar year 2010).</p>
<p>Incidentally, there is currently a survey being prepared (see the CLASSICS-L archives for the last month or so) of the effect of HS Latin and Greek on college admissions - the preliminary anecdotal evidence appears to confirm a similar survey done some years ago: Classical languages have a disproportionatly large influence on admissions success, particularly compared with “pop” languages like Spanish and Mandarin. The effect is particularly large at highly competitive schools, be they SLACs or major universities.</p>