Most people I know took a foreign language some time during their school careers. Guess how much they remember?
Language learning in school is ineffective and useless. Students don’t invest nearly enough time and effort into their work in these courses (they’re seen as less rigorous and unimportant fluff classes), and the traditional school infrastructure is not conducive for learning languages.
However, I do believe that learning foreign languages is extremely useful. Learning foreign languages expands your global perspective and widens your net of possible communication. Culture is inextricably linked to language, and only by completely understanding can you enlighten yourself to the nuances of a country’s culture. Not only that, there have been scientific studies demonstrating that language learning improves learning dexterity greatly. The list of benefits goes on and on.