The degree consists of a departmental concentration and twelve additional hours in a supporting field.? All Ph.D. coursework in Spanish must be at the 500- or 600-level, with the exception of SPAN 438 - Mexican Literature, and SPAN 423 - Cervantes Quijote. Departmental Concentration, the two concentrations are Literature and Linguistics.

The concentration in Literature consists 24 credit hours of a group of courses in a genre (narrative, poetry, theater) and a period (Medieval, Renaissance/Golden Age/Colonial, 18th and 19th Centuries, 20th Century) and 12 hours in a supporting field. The concentration in Linguistics requires 36 hours of a range of courses from the various subfields of linguistics offered at UNM.