Citizens need to be college prepared in higher numbers and with greater urgency than in the past. This growing need for a college-prepared workforce places increased demand on schools to create college-ready students. The Career and College Readiness Standards for much of public education foster the skills and dispositions for academic excellence, but equally important in this mission are the soft skills: the higher order reasoning and executive functioning skills. In the Nordic countries, there is an educational structure they call the "folkehøjskole." These started in Denmark at the urging of N.F.S. Grundtvig and his philosophy that education had become deadened and that learning needed to be a living experience. In the 1850s, this model came to life as rural, adult-education programs that sought to empower the agrarian people during times of political unrest. The goal was empowerment of the common person. Today, these programs have grown into a cultural phenomenon attracting participation from many, but largely attended by the 18-24-year-old population. Publicly funded and part of each nation's comprehensive plan for education, the "folkehøjskole" has spurred models and programs in the United States. The U.S. gap program industry is one that--in its current forms--is the most like the programs found in the Nordic region. In this article, the author provides a brief overview of the gap program.