We are two admissions leaders working to reframe the way families and institutions think about gap years. I’m Carol, a former college admissions director with over 20 years of experience in higher education and an adolescent therapist. My co-author, Becky Mulholland, is the first-year director of admissions and operations at the University of Rhode Island. Together, we are building a new gap year model that centers intent, purpose, and career preparation for all.
The concept of gap years is long overdue for a cultural reset. The most popular options on the market focus on travel, outdoor adventure, or service learning, but rarely emphasize self-exploration versus career preparation or curiosity about future work. The term itself is widely misunderstood and sometimes ignored. While it is considered a luxury for the privileged, it is often families juggling cost, stress and uncertainty who stand to gain the most from a well-supported pause.
For many families, attending college is the most expensive decision they will ever make. Taking the time to pause, reflect, and plan shouldn’t be seen as risky—it should be seen as smart. At 17 or 18 years old, it’s difficult to ask a young person to know what they want to do with the rest of their life. A 2017 federal data report found that about 30% of undergraduates who had declared a major had changed their major at least once, and about 10% had changed their major more than once. These transitions often result in additional courses and sometimes an additional semester or even year. This is a lot of money wasted for families who would have benefited from a more conscious moratorium.
Yet for many parents, the term “gap year” still causes anxiety. They imagine their children lying on the couch for three months doing nothing, or worse, never learning anything useful and losing all motivation to go back to school. The idea felt foreign, risky, and difficult to explain. They don’t know what to tell their friends or family. We address this fear and work to normalize the idea of intentional, structured time off. This isn’t just for the elite – it needs to be redefined as a culturally acceptable norm. That’s why we promote paid, structured ways to earn while you learn, such as youth apprenticeships, paid internships, stipend-supported scholarships and employer-sponsored programs that keep income steady while skills grow.
We personally promote the value of intentional pauses when talking about college with families and prospective students to help them redefine what a year of growth and clarity means. We also strongly support programs with built-in suspension requirements prior to graduate school. As dean, I read thousands of applications and saw firsthand the impact of a year with good guidance.
Gap years, if designed and supported correctly, can promote self-discovery, emotional growth, and direction. But the gap year industry itself also needs to evolve. The industry should shift to a model that prioritizes intentional career exploration that is not only rooted in personal growth and self-awareness but also helps students find fulfillment in their future careers and lives. If colleges more visibly acknowledged the value of these experiences in their advising models and admissions narratives, they could reduce stress on families and students, potentially reducing dropout rates and improving long-term outcomes.
We believe it is time for higher education to actively support and normalize gap years not as an elitist detour but as a practical and often necessary path to college and career success. It’s time to allow students and their families to take a break.
