Gap Year

Thesis: High School students should not take a year off high school before going to college because you end up not wanting to go back to school, you forget stuff you learned in high school, and you lose time you could be spending to get your college degree.
The idea of recent high school graduates putting off college for a year may seem ludicrous and impulsive, but this European tradition is catching on in America, which is not exactly a good thing. Seniors may find it daunting to continue on with their educational plans after recently finishing thirteen years of hard work. College can sometimes take two to eight years to complete and why would you want to wait to get that completed? A gap year gives students time to live their lives without school, but there are many reasons not too. First, they get too caught up in their personal lives, second, they forget what they learned in high school, and last, it takes you longer to get your degree when you take time off. In my opinion, unless you’re not going to college at all, a gap year is not a good idea.
Students are discouraged about attending college after taking a break from school after they graduate high school because they've been away from any sort of education for that short period of time. Sometimes students are sidetracked by events that are happening in their everyday lives. Like boyfriends/girlfriends or maybe just friends. A study at John Hopkins University states that “students who took a break after college were most likely sidetracked by marriage and became parents before they decided to attend college.” A lot of people become comfortable working their minimum wage jobs and feel like that is enough to get them through life. They don't realize though, that eventually they'll need to earn a degree in order to make a decent living in the future.
By taking a break from college, students often forget what they've learned in high school. Most of students who go to college right after high school remember a lot of what they've learned in the past years. However, students who take a break end up forgetting majority of what they've learned. A student at Harvard says that “High school graduates that attend college the year after high school tend to have a well knowledgeable mind, and retain more from what they were taught in high school to engage into their college courses.” When students forget what they've learned during the break, they have a harder time getting back on track, and when they do get back to school they have a harder time catching on then the rest of the students who came straight from high school.
When you take a “gap” from college, it can also take extra years just to earn your college degree. It puts you one year behind. Students who take breaks end up not graduating with their original class. A study from Yale College exclaims that “When headed towards college, many students keep in contact with their high school counselors. The high school counselors continue to advise the students and can sometimes find resources that help the student.” When you take time off it causes you to become at a disadvantage compared to all the other students, especially while trying to get your college degree. A high school diploma isn't enough anymore, which is why students shouldn't delay their education. A year might not seem like a very long time now, but once you get back into college, the time adds up, because now when you have one more year left, you could have been done if you would have went straight to college.
Though it may seem like it, take a gap year is not necessarily a good option while going to college after high school. When you take that time off high school you get distracted by your personal life, like if you decided to have children or anything, you wouldn’t have time for college with kids, you also forget a lot of the things you learned in high school because when you take the time off, you’re not thinking about any of those things, and you also lose time you could be using to get your degree, because the sooner you go, the sooner you could have it. Even something as simple as your associates can take quite a while and longer when you take a gap year. For these reasons, I say you shouldn’t take a year off high school before going to college.