This article examines the economic and educational impacts of bilingual education programs in Guatemala, focusing on their costs and benefits. Drawing on quantitative data from primary schools, the study analyzes how bilingual instruction in indigenous languages alongside Spanish influences academic performance, school attendance, repetition, and dropout rates. The findings indicate that bilingual education not only improves learning outcomes in both the native language and Spanish but also reduces grade repetition and dropout rates, generating substantial cost savings for the education system. The paper further explores the broader socio-economic implications of investing in bilingual education, particularly in multilingual and culturally diverse societies.

Bilingual education; Guatemala; indigenous languages; educational outcomes; economic analysis; cost-benefit; school attendance; dropout rates; repetition; language policy.

Patrinos, H. A., & Velez, E. (1996). Costs and benefits of bilingual education in Guatemala: A partial analysis. International Journal of Educational Development, 16(5), 463–476. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0738-0593(96)00031-1

Bialystok, E. (2001). Bilingualism in Development: Language, Literacy, and Cognition. Cambridge University Press.

Cummins, J. (2000). Language, Power and Pedagogy: Bilingual Children in the Crossfire. Multilingual Matters.

Thomas, W. P., & Collier, V. P. (2002). A National Study of School Effectiveness for Language Minority Students’ Long-Term Academic Achievement. Center for Research on Education, Diversity & Excellence.

UNESCO. (2003). Education in a Multilingual World. UNESCO Education Position Paper.

García, O., & Lin, A. M. Y. (2017). Extending Understandings of Bilingual and Multilingual Education. In O. García, A. M. Y. Lin, & S. May (Eds.), Bilingual and Multilingual Education (pp. 1–20). Springer.