What is the effect of changes to official language policies in autonomous regions? Regional autonomy provides opportunities for unique policies that protect ethnic and cultural differences and promote the use of languages distinct from the national rules. Yet, autonomous regions are not fully independent from the central governments; linguistic integration can provide opportunities, and regional populations can be diverse. The need to balance the preservation of identity practices sometimes conflicts with the need to learn and use the national official language or lingua franca. Once adopted, policies related to language are typically sticky – changing policies can be politically fraught and logistically challenging. We explore the effects of language policy changes on educational attainment and economic integration in the 40% of autonomous regions have changed their official language or language of education since 1991. We use panel data regressions to investigate factors driving changes and assess whether the rates of educational attainment and economic patterns change compared to autonomous regions without policy changes and comparable non-autonomous regions. We argue that autonomous regions primarily change their official language and language of education in response to factors external to the region, specifically, when migration patterns shift, when economic inequality across regions grows, and when the country context becomes less democratic. We find delayed effects on education and the economy, but the changes are nuanced and depend on the specific combination of language policies. The results highlight the challenges of balancing language identity and economic growth and educational opportunities in autonomous regions.