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If your point is that students shouldn't take a gap year just because its a year when they aren't getting paid, then I think you are missing the nonmonetary value (or value that is difficult to capture in monetary terms) of travel, volunteering, and the other things that people do during gap years that are much harder to replicate once you're out of school. (You're "waste of time" comment makes me thing that this is probably what you mean--but I'm not sure.)

But if your point is that gap years are expensive, and not everyone has the luxury to take one--especially in the current economic climate--then I totally agree.

#Edit: I thought you were talking about gap years generally. But, looking back at the context, maybe you mean that 2020-2021 is a particularly bad time to take a gap year, and that current students should tough it out and get their credits in, saving the gap year frivolities for a year when there are more opportunities and less economic uncertainty. If so, I could see this being good advice for a lot of students (though, of course, much depends on one's individual circumstances).

Part of the point is at the time of decision it's not clear that the students can do that gap year stuff if they take a gap year now. They wouldn't be doing it so they can travel to Brazil, but so they don't have a difficult semester (or year) in college.

Not sure I see this anywhere in GP's comment. But I certainly agree that you that it doesn't make a lot of sense to take a gap year if you can't identify, with a reasonable degree of confidence, anything valuable (or at least fun) to do during it. And I agree that this makes 2020 (perhaps also 2021) an especially poor time for gap years.

Those things are very valuable, but if there's one thing that's going to be even harder than "get a job available for a high school grad with no experience" in the coming year, it's going to be "travel the world and meet lots of new people and have amazing experiences."

I feel for the kids nowadays. I'd probably just get a year of college out of the way, despite the particularly shitty, expensive form it'll take this year, because there's really no better use of your time right now.

I'll be honest, I'm not a huge fan of gap years in general, but this year 2020-2021 seems particularly bad because it seems likely it will be an unproductive year for many so you might as well make some progress towards your degree.

Not earning is not the only missed financial opportunity: all the money that goes to travelling could be invested at a young age. With investments time is the most valuable resource. I quit at the age of 35 from the hard software engineering jobs just like many of my friends, because we burned out / wanted to come back to our home towns.

The difference between our quality of life (and especially fear of needing to go back to work) is huge.

Travelling is pretty easy though when you have time and money at this age, I don't feel that I missed out on some travel when I was younger.

>The problem with gap years is you loose an additional year of income at the college graduate level on the backend, that's a pretty big missed financial opportunity.

I don't really disagree with your other points (though I might make a different decision). But I'm not sure I buy the argument that you should enter the workforce as young as you can profitably do so (considering net present value relative to educational level) and should never take extended time off between jobs.

The average 18 year old just starting college doesn't have a job or has a low paying hourly job, has no savings and is still very much dependent on their parents for at least some financial support. For many parents delaying the time their children enter the work force can represent a significant financial burden. I am all for saving up and taking time off between jobs, sabbaticals, extended vacations and traveling the world, but doing it on mommy and daddy's dime is a fairly selfish pursuit.

> doing it on mommy and daddy's dime is a fairly selfish pursuit.

This is a value judgment specific to the US (and maybe bunch of other countries in the anglosphere). Places in the Mediterranean like Italy and Greece are notably different in children staying at parents' home till their 30s, or places in the Nordic students both don't pay for college and get small monthly stipends from the government for rent (usually in subsidized student housing) and groceries.

Raising humans is hard work and someone got to be footing the bill. Kids don't magically turn into adults at the age of 18, so their parents who made the decision to make them in the first place has responsibility until their kids reach adulthood, or this responsibility can be collectivized by the whole society because failures of parents will also be suffered by the whole society. Putting the burden of outrageous debt on the kid sounds like the most selfish thing to do by the parents and the society. And a debt only for formal education, which alone is not enough to make kids into adults.

If taking a year off is a worthwhile thing to do in life, then right at the beginning of your working life is the best time to do it. That's when your value to employers is the lowest, as you don't have any experience yet. Each year that passes makes this sort of thing more expensive to the point where the idea of a 45 year old taking a year to go backpacking or whatever is considered to be very impractical.

My last one is a rising sophomore, and I concur. In fact, he's taking a class this summer. I wish he were taking more- getting an extra semester out of this at home would have been shrewd.

My youngest's university is offering free tuition for the summer session in 2021 next year to students that are enrolled this fall. You can bet we'll be taking advantage of that and hopefully that will mean an earlier graduation and some money saved later on.