By Nikki Bordokas
The typical path of a high achieving student is customarily a K-12 education, followed immediately by four years of college. However, some students have found that a gap year is a potential way to break up their 17 years of consistent K-12 education. In reality, gap years are a dangerous option, despite their surface appeal.
Though gap years can offer new experiences and provide a break after an exhausting senior year, the costs outweigh the benefits. The U.S. Department of Education found in a recent 2005 survey that those who took gap years were less likely than their college counterparts to pursue a post secondary degree.
Although some students choose to take a year off in order to work to pay for college, many instead choose to participate in popular but expensive gap year programs that can drain families’ funds even before they have to pay college tuition. For example, a popular gap year program, Gap 360, offers trips around the world, but at a significant price. A trip to South America for four months would cost upwards of $5,000, not including travel or food prices. That $5,000 only lasts four months; one must consider the frivolous spending that would occur for leisure activities during the other eight months. Though this seems to be an insignificant amount in comparison to the $250,000 four-year tuition of most private colleges many students attend, these are still significant additional expenses.
Much of a student’s high school experience is building up the work habits necessary for college. With a gap year, these habits can be compromised. Unlike the two months without schoolwork during summer, 14 months free of academic responsibilities will inevitably lead to a loss of crucial work habits that students need when entering college. Without these skills, a student might find college rigor much too great and drop out.
Many still choose to take gap years despite the risk because they hope to gain worldly knowledge or are unsure of which academic paths they want to follow and are, therefore, hesitant to start their college experience.
With colleges now offering many study abroad options and beginning to embrace an open-curriculum approach, where students can explore different academic fields, students get the best of both worlds: the outside experience that they are looking for, as well as the education they need.
Despite the attractive possibilities a gap year offers, in the long run, gap years will only put more stress on a student. Though most students would love the opportunity to skip school for a year, it is important for them to continue on to their freshman year in college in order to effectively gain the education they need in an economically sound and academically efficient manner that will serve as an investment in their future.
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