High school is only four years of your life and many people enjoy all of those years, but some may choose only to do three years or three and a half years because they want to graduate early. Graduating early opens up many opportunities in job careers and lets you get an early jump onto college. Graduating early does close the door on high school and you don’t get to enjoy your senior year.

You are starting with the pros of graduating early from high school. If college is the route you choose, you can get a head start on college by taking classes at community colleges first to knock out some gen ed classes. You might be able to get a job earlier in your career. If you are above 18, you can work as much as you want with no limits on how many hours you can work. This will help you save money by not having to take out big loans to pay for college. While in high school you can take academically Challenging courses like AP classes to get college credits so you won’t have to take those classes for a higher price in college.

Now the cons of graduating from high school early. Cramming four years’ worth of school into 3.5 or even 3 can make the homework and study load very difficult and will have you working a lot. Missing out on senior year could be something you regret very much because you only get to experience it once and being a senior, you get the opportunity to do things you weren’t allowed to do in your first three years of high school. You can get an earlier start on a 4-year college, but many high schools work with many local community colleges to allow students to take dual enrollment classes which are much cheaper than university courses and classes.

I had a friend who graduated from high school last year early so that he could get a head start at college. He went to UNO and then to flight school to become a pilot. I think that is a great idea if you already have the career you want to do. But on the other hand, I have known people who graduated from high school early but did not go to college or anything just kind of sat around a work every so often. I think that is a big waste of time and it would have been better to stay in high school for another year.

If I was in this position I wouldn’t graduate early. Senior year is one of the best years in your schooling years and I think you should enjoy it with your friends. When you graduate early you also put a big workload on yourself and that makes high school very hard to enjoy. I’m not saying you shouldn’t work hard in school, but you should also learn to enjoy school because when it’s over you’ll miss it.

According to the “Phelps County Focus article: The positives and negatives of graduating early” by Hannah Puetz Sowers. For students who have their goals and eyes set on graduating early only 3% of people achieve it. Not saying that you shouldn’t set your goals high, but if your goals make you unable to enjoy your time with your friends and school then in my opinion it shouldn’t be a top priority.

Many people who are athletes going to D1 colleges will sometimes reclass or graduate early to help get a head start on their college schooling and workouts with the team. Many athletes can accomplish this, but it sometimes forces you to take extra classes during the summer and have a full school schedule. Never in my life would I take any classes in the summer and feel like it’s better to just enjoy your summer and chill rather than put in lots of stressful work just to graduate a few months earlier.

To sum it all up I think graduating early is a great thing to do if you want to, but if you are on the fence about it I think it’s better to just enjoy your time in high school and focus on the classes you currently have. While it may seem nice to get out of high school early, I don’t believe that it is worth the stress, and workload that comes with graduating early.