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How 2024 will impact your kids
Digital detoxing, AI in the classroom, and gap years, oh my!
Ivy Xu
December 29, 2023
Happy (almost) 2024!
Last week, we highlighted our best research of 2023.
For this special Future Friday edition, I turned to our incredible team at Prequel to develop four predictions that will impact your kids in 2024.
We don’t have a crystal ball, but we do have our finger on the pulse of education and life skills.
Read on to see what our experts predict. 🧠
Have a great weekend…
Four data-backed predictions for 2024:
1. Homeschooling will take off for working families.
2. High school grads will need gap years to stand out.
3. Digital detoxing will rise for the entire family.
4. AI ain’t going away.
Homeschooling will move out of the niche and into the norm
Katarina Smith — Program Director, AlphaX
 | Homeschooling skyrocketed during the pandemic, and while it might appear to be slowly trending back down to pre-pandemic levels, AlphaX Program Director Katrarina Smith isn’t so sure. She’s bullish on homeschooling. Katarina predicts the largest growth segment in homeschooling belongs to working families. “There will be a new understanding of what homeschooling means and a different attitude toward homeschooling,” she said. |
Education growth by type. Source: The Washington Post
So what exactly does that attitude shift look like? Families are opening up their minds to alternatives that are in-between traditional homeschooling and traditional education.
“This may involve microschools and other group-based programs — not necessarily just schooling from home (especially for working families),” noted Katarina.
Microschools are definitely on the rise.
Kerry McDonald, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Economic Education claims that “we’re at the beginning of what will be an ongoing movement toward personalized, learner-centered, unconventional education models”.
But what about the age-old debate on homeschooled kids lacking socialization skills?
Katarina thinks this will still exist in 2024, but will decrease over time, “especially as homeschoolers start to have great outcomes to prove it works”.
What are your thoughts on homeschooling? |
The gap is closing on gap years
Salman Sohani — Program Director, BETA Camp
Salman Sohani works closely with hundreds of high school students every year at BETA Camp. His prediction for 2024? Even more high school graduates will opt for gap years. 🧑🎓 Gap years have already more than doubled since before the pandemic, but these kids aren’t taking a “year off” to backpack through Thailand — Salman says they’re using the time to complete resume-enhancing projects. |  |
Why? Because a college degree isn’t enough on its own, and ambitious students are seeking an edge.
“I have a brilliant family friend who graduated from an Ivy league school and landed a prestigious job, but is still hammering away at college loans at the age of 30,” Salman reported.
💸 It takes the average student 21 years to pay off student loans. Yikes.
The ROI for college degrees is being increasingly scrutinized. College costs have increased 169% over the past four decades, but earnings for workers between the ages of 22 and 27 have increased by only 19%.
While degrees are still a good investment over the course of a lifetime, Salman predicts that ambitious graduates want to bolster earning potential in their 20s by taking a gap year to start building a professional portfolio.
Will you encourage your kid to take a gap year before beginning college? |
Digital detoxing — for the entire family
Zaki Hirji — Social Media Manager, Prequel
 | On average, kids between 8-18 spend 7.5 hours per day looking at screens. 🤳 That’s 114 days per year. Holy moly. Prequel’s Social Media Manager, Zaki Hirji earns his living helping us communicate to you all through screens, and even he thinks enough is enough. Zaki’s prediction? |
2024 will be the year of digital detoxing — for the entire family.
Earlier this year, we published some great research on how to get your kids off their screens and into the real world.
We’re going to continue to focus on this topic. It’s a doozy.
Would your family participate in an at-home digital detox program? |
❌ AI is not a fad
A prediction from all of us at Prequel
2023 saw the explosion of generative AI, and the world began to experience both the benefits and the complications of this incredible technology.
At Prequel, we:
Delivered an AI Masterclass for teens
Developed a PrequelGPT parenting chatbot
And even hired our first AI engineer
AI isn’t a fad, and it’s not going away.
Katarina Smith points out that if we look at January 2023, school districts like NYC were outright banning ChatGPT on their computers, but soon changed their tune.
“Every teacher friend I have is using ChatGPT for lesson planning,” Katarina revealed. “They have gotten more comfortable, and even excited, about the idea of using AI in the right way — not to cheat — both for themselves and with students”.
But wide adoption means that we’re going to need guardrails.
Zaki Hirji thinks that University exam methods are going to be updated in 2024 to address concerns over students using AI assistance, and Katarina agrees.
“I think there might be a new wave of tools or systems that allow educators to use AI with students in a ‘non-cheating’ way,” she added.
How do you feel about AI in education? |
Do you have interesting predictions for 2024?
Write back and lay ‘em on me!
Until next time,
Ivy
Follow my journey on LinkedIn
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