The education system is one of the sole determinants in the outcome of one’s financial success, yet it is known to disadvantage a certain group of people. Other aspects of education disadvantage this group as well, such as educational reforms and programs like the gap year. The people within this group all have something in common that they cannot change without the help from their education systems: they are a part of the lower class. A far-reaching predicament arises from this situation. The lower class needs the assistance that the school systems are able to offer, but the schools in their area are extremely underfunded (Semuels). In order to have a fighting chance at survival, lower class individuals tend to live in places where the costs of living are low; however, these places are also known for less than satisfactory schooling (Semuels). Location is the be-all and end-all for a satisfactory education (Semuels). If one wants to have a good education, he or she must hope to live in a privileged school district where government funding is overflowing, but this rarely ever actually happens for the lower class (Semuels). Without a satisfactory high school education, lower class students hardly stand a chance at getting into college and receiving the higher education that is needed to have a better paying career. Is there any way that the lower class could be able to bypass their inadequate high school education to be able to get ahead in obtaining better, higher education? The gap year is a program that could yield the benefits needed by these lower class students to be able to have a better education in college, but as of now, it only disadvantages this group of people. 

-  The gap year is a program that allows students to take time off from schooling, generally for one academic year, so that they are able to immerse themselves into other cultures and different ways of life before they go off to pursue a higher form of education (Sherifi). Students embark on their gap year for about a year by travelling or accepting internships; anything that will allow them to open their eyes to new things instead of being surrounded by the same people every day within the walls of their respective high schools (Sherifi).  Many scholars have noted how the gap year is able to benefit those who take the gap year in positive ways that lead to their academic, career, and financial success (O’Shea 4). -/+ There are many articles, studies, and journals written on the many benefits of the gap year, in fact, one might not be able to even find a source talking negatively about the gap year. The overall consensus of the idea of the gap year is it will benefit its pursuers during their time in college or university and ensure their success both in higher education and in their career (O’Shea 2). The data provided from Joseph O’Shea’s book Gap Year: How Delating College Changes People in Ways the World Needs relays the actual experiences of people who took a gap year (8). O’Shea then analyzes how their time spent volunteering helped changed their outlook on life and how it affected their development within psychological theory (10). O’Shea details how he went about this by saying:

First, I show how the year not only served to develop how participants think—the processes through which they come to understand the world—but also changed what they think—the particular meanings they make of themselves, others, and world around them. I then examine the implications of these changes and argue that the gap year promoted participants’ development as cosmopolitan citizens and community members, enriching what I refer to as their civic meaning-making. In the last chapter, I show how the experiences detailed in the narratives and the theories of education and human development can aid in creating and designing a gap year that helps change people in ways the world needs. (O’Shea 10)

O’Shea hopes to illustrate to his readers that the gap year is not only beneficial to those who take it, but also to the world we live in (10). He even goes so far to state that the world desperately needs people to pursue a gap year (O’Shea 10). The only issue O’Shea brings up is that students need to take a proper proper gap year that is spent travelling or volunteering in order to make the time spent on the gap year meaningful and, therefore, yield the desired results (O’Shea 4). Paragraph Break

The issue O’Shea fails to relay is the most problematic one. O’Shea never brings up the prices the gap year costs for students to experience the gap year. Data acquired from gapyear.com states that the gap year only being available to the upper middle class is an old stigma that is a fallacy today (Sherifi). Macca Sherifi claims that the gap year costs between 5000 to 7000 pounds (Sherifi). This amount converted to US dollars runs upwards to almost $10,000. Those within the lower class could not even fathom spending this amount of money. The article written in the Huffington Post on the costs of the gap year relays the statement that the gap year is affordable by saying that those who wish to take it may not cost a thing if they simply stay at home (Fisk). However, in O’Shea’s book, the gap year only yields benefits to those who make their time meaningful, meaning that one must be willing to pay for its benefits (4). Some of these benefits of the gap year are improved grades during one’s time spent in higher education no matter what his or her previous grades were in high school. Improved education then leads to better jobs and higher incomes (O’Shea 7). In all, taking the gap year can only improve one’s life because of all these benefits it provides.  

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Despite the many articles all in agreeance that the gap year is only beneficial, some still argue that the gap year cannot be all that wonderful (McPhate). Their argument would be that the students taking the gap year already have the better education and would, therefore, have a better paying career (McPhate).  This argument reasons that the students who do take a gap year are already more affluent in their education and will do better in college because of it (McPhate). This argument seems to not take into account the fact that the gap year has been proven to improve grades once in college (O’Shea 4). If the gap year did not improve grades, one might be able to argue for this counterargument, but since the gap year has been proven to do so, this argument can be easily dispelled. Even though most of the students that have been able to take a gap year so far have had better education, they have also had better grades in college. This means that the gap year helped these students to do better with their education and in college. These students’ lower income counterparts’ lives would improve greatly from this particular aspect of the gap year. 

An improvement in a lower class individual’s life is greatly needed. One scholar has argued that the middle class has been putting educational reforms into place for years in order to allow its offspring to prosper while ignoring the disadvantages it places on the lower class students (Apple). Additional burdens are also newly being put upon a lower class individuals’ shoulders. One of these burdens would be that the lower class is having more trouble finding work. The corporate owners of businesses are finding new ways to cut down their expenses by taking away jobs from their workers (Reber). This is done by the new additions of technology to the company such as mechanics and automated machinery (Reber). The new age of technology permits robotics that will do the work that was before done primarily by those within the lower class (Reber). The lower class jobs are being stripped away by from its individuals and they are left to fend for themselves. These individuals are mostly brought into their situation of being in the lower class without any wrong doing; they were born into it. They then are disadvantaged from the start with less money for education because they no longer have jobs, and the need to work as soon as possible in order to make a living (Apple). Without higher education, however, a job with life sustainable wages is hard to come across. The lower class individuals who do want to pursue college will still be disadvantaged because of the educational reforms that were set into place to hinder them. The benefits that the gap year is shown to provide, such as improved grades in college, could allow the lower class individual to finally get past the obstacles placed upon them in during their time in previous schooling. The gap year is known to give advantages to those who take it, but since taking a gap year will cost more money, those within the lower class will not be able to pursue it. 

All of the benefits of the gap year can only be obtained by those who are able to afford it. This problem only exacerbates the issues of the lower class individuals since they are not able to afford the gap year and then cannot have the ability to be able to get ahead of others (Heath). Scholars have noticed that upcoming generations will have a harder time maintaining the same economic status they grew up in, and therefore, they will need something that will allow them to have an advantage over their peers (Heath). The gap year is a way of doing so, but lower class students are not able to pursue it and will, consequently, prevent the lower class from the much needed escape route out of their socioeconomic status (Heath). - So, how can someone in the lower class be able to take a gap year in order to reap all of its benefits? One solution might be when students fill out forms like the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, the information the student gives will be able to determine if the student is in financial need and then will qualify for the gap year. The government could then set up a program that allows students that qualify for the gap year to travel abroad and work to be able to pay for room and board. This way, only students who are determined to be in financial need will be able to take a gap year. Then, the lower income students will have an advantage over their higher income peers. The gap year has proven to help students improve their grades in college or at university. If lower income students were the only students that were able to pursue a gap year, they could then finally be at an equal starting point with their student counterparts. Paragraph Break

The issue then would be the costs of a higher education. Financial aid and scholarships based off of educational attainment can only go so far for lower income students, since the educational system is already rigged against them by educational reforms set into place by the middle class. As a consequence, lower income students without financial aid or scholarships cannot accomplish a degree at a college or university. The solution to this problem would be free higher education for the same students who qualified for the gap year. These ideas could then help the lower income individuals to prosper within their education and, therefore, their careers and their incomes. 

Another way that lower income students could finally receive a prosperous education is to give the lower funded schools the funding they desperately need. This would resolve the problem of unequal education. With proper funding being allocated to all schools, every student will have an equal playing field in education and have a better chance at working a suitable, enjoyable job (“Education”). Instead of the government picking and choosing which schools get the most money, which are not coincidentally located in more prosperous areas, the government could give the money to all schools, but primarily to the ones that desperately need it. It would take time for the funding to yield its full effects, but it would be a starting point to help to try and right the wrongdoings of excluding certain schools from funding that is of upmost necessity. This solution is probably the most important due to the fact that the education system is one of the main determinants in the process that establishes an individual’s career path (“Education”). The schools that do not receive adequate funding also do not have the resources needed to prepare its students and establish their career path (“Education). If these schools did have funding, they would be able to sufficiently do its job at educating its students, and programs like the gap year could still be available, but the lower income students would not have the same need for it as before. The gap year could then be an added benefit to find out what career one wants to be a part of, like it is now for those who are able to afford. 

In conclusion, a particular set of students have been stripped away of an equal chance at education. The standard they do not meet is something that is out of their control: high income.  These low income students have had a multitude of disadvantages put in their way. These disadvantages include bigger entities like the government not distributing the appropriate amount of money to their schools and educational reforms put into place to harm them so that their wealthier peers can be prosperous to smaller entities like the gap year that is able to give an advantage in college to those who take it but is only affordable to those in higher classes. The gap year has costs that the lower class is not able to afford, but the gap year has been proven to help those who pursue it in his or her education, career, and income (Heath). The gap year would also be able to provide some relief to lower income individuals. Their jobs are being taken away by advanced machinery and their need for the gap year is great as a result (Reber). The gap year could allow them to prosper in college and get better jobs that they now desperately need since their old jobs are gone. One could propose the idea to have the lower class individual’s gap year and higher education be paid for by the government. This way, the lower class individuals would be able to have the advantage of the gap year while being able to afford a higher education. The gap year has shown to be significantly influential in its pursuers outcome in not only education, but also his or her career (O’Shea 2). Also, the government could finally begin allotting the appropriate amount of money needed by schools to properly prepare their students for the future. Education is a human right, and location should not determine how well of an education an individual will receive because a poor quality education is like no education at all (“Education”) Education has shown to reduce poverty, boost economic growth, increase income, and combat diseases (“Education”). Basically, education is probably the most important investment in one’s future, and the government should act more like it. The reversible effects of low funded schools will take time to correct, so in the meantime, the gap year could be a possibility for lower income students that have already been disadvantaged to yield its benefits and have a better education in college if it was only affordable. For now, the education system is still against lower income students, and the gap year is as well since it is not available to them but only to those who can afford it. Thereby, the gap year gives one-sided benefits to those who are already privileged because they are the only ones who can afford it. 

 