Surfing Your Brains Out Is Now A Legit Path to Higher Education
If only this existed when we were in high school.
Imagine being 16 and spending your school year bouncing between Costa Rica, Portugal, Lombok, and Peru.
You’re living with 20 like-minded students, surfing everyday, soaking up a different culture, and somehow, you’re still on track for college.
That’s the promise of World Class Academy: Surf — a brand-new traveling high school that merges proper education with the kind of trips most of us spend our 9-to-5s dreaming of.
The Surf school is the fifth and latest addition to World Class Academy, a niche education system that has been running programs for kayaking, kiteboarding, climbing, and mountain biking since 2001.
“In a search for a more sustainable model, the school began to grow laterally into other sports,” says Riley Gardner, a longtime WCA teacher and the man in charge of spearheading the surf expansion. “Surfing is our latest addition.”
Starting in August 2025, a group of students will kick off an academic year in Costa Rica, then fly to Portugal, Indonesia, and Peru. About two months will be spent at each location — enough time to build rhythm in the classroom, familiarity with a multitude of spots, and maybe even get tight with a local tube sensei or two.
World Class Academy was originally founded as a whitewater kayaking school in Montana. The school eventually began to expand first into Kiteboarding, then Climbing, MTB, and now surfing.
The surf program follows the same format: small by design, with around 20 students and 7 staff — a highly favorable student-teacher ratio. Teachers double as coaches and mentors. They live together, travel together, make meals together, and surf together daily. “Students have to be both academically qualified and solid at the sport,” says Gardner. “The teachers also kinda have to rip.”
As far as the coursework goes, graduation requirements help shape each student’s curriculum, which is often delivered in micro-classes of five to six students. For the parents reading, WCA is fully accredited and has a strong college-prep focus. “We’ve had students go to a wide range of universities. We’re definitely pushing kids toward higher education,” says Gardner.
Students and parents shouldn’t be surprised by how rigorous the academics really are. If a student’s grades drop below a C, they’re benched from surfing until they’re back on track. Same goes for missed homework — dry-docked until it’s delivered. ‘It’s academics first. Surfing is the carrot,’ Gardner says.
World Class Academy attracts a specific kind of student — not just elite junior pros, but surf-stoked high schoolers whose parents value education and believe their kid might learn more on a surf trip to Peru than in your typical suburban Biology class.
“We get a lot of kids who weren’t that engaged in school when they came to us. Now, they’re surrounded by other kids obsessed with the same sport, and suddenly, homework matters,” Gardner adds. “If they don’t complete their work in a concerted manner, they’re not going surfing with their friends. If they do, well, the world is their oyster.”
The new Surf Academy will likely mirror other WCA programs: a morning session, a full day of school, and maybe another session or dry land workout in the evening. Meals are usually home-cooked by the crew or prepared locally, depending on the stop. Accommodations range from full-house rentals to hostels that double as makeshift campuses — math class by the pool, anyone?
Regardless of location, the curriculum remains consistent: sport, study, sleep, repeat.
The program isn’t cheap, but valuable education rarely is — and for a surf-focused high schooler the experience is invaluable. Each semester includes two trips. While flights and gear aren’t covered, once students land, everything else — food, lodging, school, and coaching — is taken care of.
While WCA has yet to produce a CT surfer, the program has produced Olympians from their kiting and kayaking schools.
Too bad our guidance counselor never got the memo.
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