The Gap Year? Not new, just repackaged.

Last updated on: May 3, 2016 at 8:51 am by Jane the Actuary

The Gap Year? Not new, just repackaged. 2016-05-03T08:51:08-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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The Gap Year, the break from formal education between high school and college which is in the news again because of the announcement that this is what Malia Obama will be doing before attending Harvard, is nothing new.

The working class have been taking gap years long before it became trendy. It was called, “earning money for college,” and often took the form of joining the army. And it was criticized as a poor decision, because once out of the academic environment, it’s considered too difficult to settle back into the routine of classes and study, and, after all, the “learning loss” that everyone frets over when it happens over the summer, is further magnified by more time away. How much pre-calc will you forget over time, when you finally enroll in college-level calculus?

But when the rich do it? Well, then we celebrate it.

And instead of the “life-enriching” experience of learning how to support yourself and live independently, the Gap Year for the wealthy is just one more year of parental support.

Look at the formal Gap Year programs: “Global Citizen Year” charges up to $32,500, based on family income. “Where There Be Dragons” charges $32,850 for a 7-month program in Central America consisting of “exploring social justice, Spanish language study, home-stays, learning service, land use, and grassroots organizing.”

In the Washington Post yesterday (and syndicated in the Chicago Tribune today), Jeffrey J. Selingo writes,

For the gap year to truly matter, it can’t be simply a break, a year spent sleeping in the childhood bedroom and working part time at McDonald’s. Students who delay college to work odd jobs while they try to “find themselves” don’t do as well as everyone else when they get to campus. They get lower grades, and there’s a greater chance they will drop out.

But students whose gap years involve travel — whether to a foreign country or to a different part of the United States — not only end up with higher grades in college, but they also graduate at the same rate as those who don’t delay at all.

Is this a real difference? Or is it simply a class difference? Rich kids take a year off to travel, poor kids to work, and rich kids, by being rich, are far more likely to continue with their plans to go to, and graduate from, college afterwards. And does a year off, in a structured program or in the responsibility-free format of extended travel, really mold more responsible young adults?

Selingo continues:

As recently as the 1970s, a teenager had a number of options after graduating from high school: get a good-paying job right away, enlist in the military, find an apprenticeship in a trade or go to college. A teenager today really has only two of those options still available — the military or college. Fewer than 1 percent of Americans serve in the military, so most go to college right after high school.

Which seems to be a fairly narrow view of the world — after all, trade school and other skilled trades programs may be scorned, but they haven’t vanished.

And he writes,

For a gap year to have a significant impact on success in college, and later in the working world, it needs to be a transformative event, quite distinct from anything a student has experienced before — a meaningful work experience, academic preparation for college or travel that opens up the horizon to the rest of the world. It should also be designed to help students acquire the skills and attributes that colleges and employers are looking for: maturity, confidence, problem-solving, communication skills and independence.

The line about “academic preparation for college” is a bit concerning, if “gap year” is just window-dressing for a year of remedial-type classes for kids underprepared from high school. And a “meaningful work experience” seems all too often to mean the sort of internships that well-connected parents can conjure up for their kids. Beyond that, it seems like a fairly tall order to imagine that a gap year will be “transformative” for a typical 18 year old.

But the underlying reason for the enthusiasm for Gap Years is also fairly clear — how many kids did you know in college who spent their time partying because they had no real ambitions, who changed their major a dozen times, each time costing them more “travel time” or dropping down a level in difficulty, and who graduated late as a result, or with no clue about their future career, often going to grad school in large part because they had no idea what else to do? Even kids who are interested in a technical/STEM-type field of study generally arrive at college with no experience in the area other than their high school coursework. But what’s needed is likely more opportunities for students to work, rather than being told to focus on their studies. And, for liberal arts students, I had some time ago, floated the idea of a “liberal arts GMI,” applying the GMI concept of co-ops to a liberal arts “credential” consisting of a mix of experiences and independent learning.

And, having said this, will I encourage my oldest, now in 10th grade, to do a gap year? You bet — though in our case, it’d be a year as an exchange student in Germany.

Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AUrban_backpacking.jpg; public domain

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