Is this the end of the Gap Year?

Sleeping in hostels, 8 hour train journeys, traipsing around Thailand with all your possessions on your back, sound exciting?

As we are sprung free from the comfortable nest of school and home-life, many eighteen year-olds are chomping at the bit for adventure. It seems the best way to approach this is to work in Tesco's just long enough that you've saved money to travel the world on a shoe string, but not too long that you've completely lost the will to live. Then you leap head-first into a country of your choice, the first stop on a rickety duct-taped bus to independence.

The Gap Year is dreaded by many parents, feeling unable to express concern about safety without an indignant, know-it-all retort. As my mother would say "why don't you leave home now whilst you still know everything". However I'm certain the majority of parents are pro-Gap Year as a way for young people to see the world without a care or worry. Everyone I've spoken to who has taken a Gap Year has persuaded me to do the same and enthused me about the brilliant unforgettable things they saw, tasted and smelled.

I toyed with the idea until recently. My mind was made up for me. As the rise in University Fees was announced, plans for 'The Gap Year' were dropped countrywide with a defeated thud. As the increase in fees will take effect from september 2012, current year 13 students will be able to slip under the wire and get to University paying the current fees. Anyone considering a Gap Year must now also consider doubled tuition fees. Suddenly a month spent on a beach in Fiji doesn't seem such a great idea.

I have decided to spend my summers travelling (it seems the more you pay for tuition, the less you get, as you spend 2 months of the summer back at home getting under your parents feet). Whilst I am perfectly happy with my adventurous summers in the pipe-line, many others my age are feeling dejected that this great opportunity has been effectively whipped out from underneath their feet. The majority will throw themselves into university lifestyle in september 2011, putting off plans for later. I find it disappointing that so many young people already have to start postponing the things they were most looking forward to. At least they are not in the awful position of the current lower-sixth students, many of whom will be re-thinking applying to university at all, let alone a jolly in japan.

Yes it has been made more difficult for current sixth-formers to plan out their not-too-distant future, but I wouldn't put the final nail in the coffin of young exploration yet. I am sure that young people will continue to travel, explore and take gap-years in future. The rickety buses will continue for many years yet to transfer teenagers through three countries in as many weeks.