A large amount of gap-year participants will go abroad, purely to learn a new language, with some “Gappers”, choosing to take on language lessons at their chosen travel destination (Gordon, 2014). Learning a new language is often required for gap-year students, as the countries …show more content…
Only ten percent of gap-year students can afford to pay this independently, out of the remaining eighty percent, twenty percent are partly funded by their parents (Williams, 2014). The cost of the average gap-year is enough to cover the weekly food costs of a student in self-catered university accommodation, for a total of sixty weeks (Ed.ac.uk, 2014). Freelance journalist, Emily Wight, writes that up to “seventy-nine percent of parents are now putting money aside for university as soon as their child is born.”(wight, 2014), this shows how much of an economic impact university plays. Lost time and financing is a small cost to students though, especially in the eyes of their parents, when it comes to the safety of the travelling …show more content…
The pair were on a work placement in Borneo when the incident took place (BBC News, 2014). When safety is concerned, it is not only protection from physical assault that must be addressed, but also diseases, such as malaria. Students are often advised to contact their local General Practitioners before travelling