Taking a gap year before going to university has always been a popular activity amongst students with a bit of cash and time on their hands.
But according to high street bank Abbey, British students are becoming increasingly cautious with forking out large sums of cash to go scuba diving in Mauritius or backpacking in Zambia.
According to website gapyear.com a luxury gap year could cost a student as much as £5,000 with the average being around £3,000. Is this money well spent?
Some students who were asked by Abbey Mortgages don’t seem to think so – 42% or 830,000 students questioned said they had already started to save money towards the deposit on their first home, which is more than twice the amount of students saving to go travelling.
Abbey’s research found that 1 in 10 past graduates that have financed a gap year said that they probably wouldn’t have made the same decision in today’s current property climate.
Despite a marginal drop in house prices in the month of January, it would cost a first-time buyer on average £183,324 to buy a home, according to property website Rightmove.co.uk.
Nici Audhlam-Gardiner, the head of Abbey Mortgages said: “House prices have brought in a harsh new reality for students. They now need to weigh up the benefits of travelling against jumping straight into a career and being able to afford to get onto the property ladder.”
Gardiner added: “It is certainly encouraging to see that many university students are sensibly putting money aside for that important deposit on their first home.”
Gary Mizler decided not to take a gap year not only because it was too expensive. He says: “After being with my girlfriend [Louise] for over four years, we were more concerned about securing our long-term future than a short-term experience…If we had used the money to go on a gap year it would have delayed us buying a house by at least two years.”
He believes that the property market has been very difficult for first-time buyers to get onto and thinks more will be able to get onto the ladder in the coming years due to the slow down in the market.
“I think every penny you can save while studying will get you closer to getting on the property ladder after graduation. If I had not started saving early we would have had greater trouble getting on the property ladder,” he adds.
Gary and his girlfriend eventually bought a home in the Mosborough area on the outskirts of Sheffield after managing to save around £2,000 that would have been
spent on airfares and travelling – “not to mention the other untold amounts I would have put on my credit card.”
He is happy with his first home, he adds: “Most of my friends are enviable of the position I’m in, as most are either renting or living back at home with parents.”
The cost of buying their first home is not the only worry facing today’s students.
According to the National Union of Students the average annual cost of student accommodation for 2006-7 during term time in London is £3,752 and outside London is £2,813. It is no wonder that students now don’t want to take a gap year.
In 2006-7, furthermore the overall average weekly rent for a room in an institutionally provide allocated accommodation is £81.80, an increase from 2003-4 of 23%. This is predicted to rise at least in line with the Retail Price Index by over 4.5%.
However, Nina Grayson a student who is now studying for a BSc in anthropology at the university of London really enjoyed taking a gap year last year.
Nina paid approximately £1,970 for a placement on an overseas project which included accommodation, food and a local representative.
“I worked for a 11 weeks in a children’s school in a slum area in Bangalore, India. I assisted teachers, devised activities and helped children on a one-to-one basis,” she said.
Nina funded her placement in India by working as a professional fundraiser in the UK on behalf of Action Aid and Save the Children, as well as working in her local pub on Saturday nights.
She doesn’t seem to be bothered by the fact that she might not be able to get on the property ladder after completing her Gap year or indeed university.
“Those kind of things aren’t important to me. Maybe I’ll change my mind in the future, but for now it is not my priority…I have never had aspirations [of owning] a huge house. As long as my home feels like a home, I’m not bothered about other factors,” she added.
Samuel Tang also took a gap year to Central America – Belize Guatemala and Mexico with Trekforce for five months, and then travelled around South America – Peru, Bolivia and Brazil for another two and a half months.
Samuel is now studying Geography at Exeter University. His gap year cost him around £5,000 including flights and spending money. The additional travelling afterwards with all the flights and spending money came to approximately £2,500.
He really enjoyed his time off and plans to travel and volunteer after finishing university.
“I would like to travel in between university years to South America, preferably to help volunteer in a school again, but I do also have plans to go to South East Asia, Australia and New Zealand after I finish university,” said Tang.
When asked about whether he has plans to save for his first home now he added: “Maybe when I am mid-late twenties, but my priority at the moment is to enjoy life whilst I am young, therefore I want to experience the world before I have a deterrent such as a property preventing me from going wherever I wanted to go.”
The National Union of Students and GapGuru.com – an organisation which creates a ‘perfect’ gap year programme for students are fully supportive of students like Samuel Tang who want to take a gap year before starting university.
“Gap years have traditionally been an opportunity for prospective students to broaden their experiences by meeting new people, learning new languages and skills, and working for voluntary projects across the world. It is a great shame that increasing fees, rising debts and the inaccessibility of the property ladder are pricing today’s students from broadening their development through travel, denying them the opportunities afforded to students in the past,” said Stephen Brown, the NUS national secretary.
Arvind Malhotra, managing director of GapGuru.com said: “While the hike in tuition fees and the negative press that overseas volunteering received in 2007 may have put some would-be gappers off, for others it has forced them to consider how to put a year out to best use.”
“The trends that GapGuru experienced throughout 2007 and into 2008 certainly back this theory, as despite the reported decrease in the number of students taking gap years over the past year, we’ve actually seen an increase in numbers for our medical, journalism and business based work placements in India,” Malhotra added.
According to the Universities and College Admissions Service (UCAS) only 7.3% of 390,890 accepted applicants deferred their entry to higher education from 2006-2007 compared with 7.7% or 31,059 of accepted applicants from 2005-2006.
The “jury may be out” on whether or not to take a gap year before university if you are a student. But with near un-attainable prices for first-time buyers in the UK, it may be wise to put away some savings for that deposit.