If you’re thinking about a gap year, the worry that usually comes up first is whether it’ll put you behind, behind your friends, behind on your degree, behind on your career. A national analysis of Australian students gives a clear answer to that specific worry: six-year university completion rates are almost identical whether you take a gap year or go straight into a degree, 70% for gap year takers compared with 69% for those who enrolled straight away, a gap small enough to fall within the study’s margin of error.
What the research shows
That number comes from a Department of Education analysis linking higher education, tax, and social security records for students who left school between 2009 and 2016. It’s the largest and most detailed look at this question in Australia to date, and it controlled for the factors that usually get blamed when a gap year is assumed to slow someone down, including entrance scores, location, and financial background.
Who takes a gap year, and why it doesn’t hold them back
Around one in seven school leavers took a gap year in the years studied, though that share has been falling, from 17% in 2009 to 11% in 2016. It also varies a lot by state: close to one in three school leavers in the Northern Territory took a gap year, compared with around one in seven in New South Wales.
Compared with students who go straight to university, gap year takers are more likely to:
- Come from a regional or remote area
- Have a somewhat lower tertiary entrance score on average
- Work during their gap year, and keep working while they study
- Receive government income support such as Youth Allowance in their first year of study
On paper, these are exactly the kind of factors that usually predict a harder run through a degree: distance from campus, financial pressure, a lower entrance score. Instead, gap year takers finish at close to the same rate as everyone else.
Part of the explanation is likely how that time is spent. Earlier national research on gap year students found their most common activities were paid work, at around 40%, and study or training, at around 33%, with only a small share reporting travel as their main focus. A gap year spent working gives students time to save before study starts, which can ease financial pressure once they’re enrolled, and time to settle on what they actually want to study, which may lower the chances of starting a course that doesn’t suit them and having to change direction partway through.
Does a gap year affect scholarships or entry pathways
This is where things get more specific to each university, so it’s worth checking early rather than assuming. Adjustment factors, sometimes still called bonus points, are generally based on your Year 12 results and personal circumstances rather than when you start your degree, so in most cases they still apply if you take a gap year. Exactly which factors apply, and how many points they’re worth, varies by university and by course, and the rules can change from year to year.
Scholarships tend to be stricter. Many require you to apply in the same year you complete Year 12, and can’t be deferred alongside a university offer. Some also have conditions around what you do during your gap year, so starting university study early, for example, could affect your eligibility for one designed for school leavers.
If you’re still deciding
This data doesn’t tell you whether a gap year is right for you, and it isn’t trying to. What it does show is that taking one won’t put you at an academic disadvantage once you get to university. If you’re still weighing it up, it’s worth:
- Talking to your school’s careers advisor about how a gap year could fit your specific goals
- Checking whether your course of choice allows you to defer your offer
- Getting clear on what you want out of the year, work, study, or just space to think, before you commit to it
Our Gap Years hub has more on what a gap year could look like and how to plan one.
