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Taking a "gap year" - or a year between high school and college to travel, do service work or an independent study - has long been popular in the United Kingdom and Europe.

While the concept has been slow to catch on in the United States, Princeton University is taking steps to make a "bridge year" part of its university program.

Tentatively slated to begin in 2009, the program would focus specifically on public service work abroad and would be open to all admitted incoming freshman. The University does not plan to charge tuition for the program and will also offer financial aid.

While acknowledging that the Princeton idea is a good one, prestigious Chicago-area institutions seem unlikely to follow suit.

"A program like the one Princeton is considering would be very expensive," said Ronald R. Braeutigam, the associate provost for undergraduate education at Northwestern University. "My guess is that many universities will decide that the resources needed to support such a program could be used more productively in other ways, including, for example, additional financial support and programming for those students who are on campus."

Martha Merritt, associate dean for international education at the University of Chicago, said that while 40 percent of the student body studies abroad in some capacity while enrolled, there are no plans to begin a "bridge year" program.

The United States has not readily warmed to the "gap year" idea, which enjoys wild popularity in the United Kingdom and Europe. London's Observer newspaper reported that in 2006 about 24,000 students deferred their entry to university in England in favor of a year working or volunteering, usually in another country.

Jill Meyer, a coordinator at the college/career center at Evanston Township High School, said cultural reasons might be a reason for the discrepancy.

"You get in the mind frame of, 'Go, go, go, work hard and get the American dream,'" she said. "So it's like, 'Huh, take year off? That's not what we do here.' But people are realizing the value of not always working so hard- [a gap year] is challenging in a different way.

Despite the growing awareness of a gap year option, she said, it has not become popular.

"The word is out more and more," she said. "But I don't know that I've seen a spike in our students taking advantage of it."

Students who do choose to take a year off, said Meyer, are still very focused on their studies. Most plan to attend college the following year.

"I think for some students it can help provide a time to rest up before meeting the demands of college," she said. "They grow personally before being thrown in new environment."

Donna Virklan, a college counselor at Niles North High School in Skokie, agrees. The decision to take a year off, she said, depends on many factors, including parental encouragement.

"Lots of parents are afraid that if their kids don't start college right away, they won't start at all," she said. "But sometimes kids get tired and need something to reenergize them. It's a good thing to take a year off as long as you're doing something."