The Impact of Covid-19 on Students’ Decisions to Take Gap Years

Because of COVID-19, many incoming first-year college students and even some upperclassmen chose to take a gap year. Prior to the pandemic, taking a gap year was already a path many students took, but there is now an indefinite rise of students taking this path. In this paper, researchers sought to understand the differences between taking a gap year pre-COVID-19 vs. during Covid-19? We hope to answer how gap years affect students' learning and academic patterns and analyze socio-economic factors such as family's financial capacities and on-campus housing. Moreover, it is also crucial to examine the long-term impacts of the increase in gap years. What will happen to tuition, higher-education availability, and the importance of college? We aimed to answer all of these questions through a series of surveys.