The best known culinary schools in the country come with price tags that range anywhere from $35,000 to $54,000 for a two-year associate's degree or up to about $109,000 for a bachelor's degree. All this for a career path that traditionally starts with a $10 an hour job doing back-breaking work for insane hours and over holidays. And, while the salary does improve with time, cooking is rarely going to be a lucrative profession.
So is going to culinary school worth it? There's not one right answer to the long-debated question. It depends on a lot of factors, including the costs of culinary school, the alternatives, career aspirations, and temperament. There are passionate arguments on all sides.
Chefs, restaurateurs, educators, students, and newly-minted line cooks from across the country shared with Eater their thoughts on the value of culinary school. They all agreed that education is valuable, but their opinions differed on how to get it for the greatest value. What lies ahead is a look at the pros and cons of going to culinary school. (...)
Any time you're throwing down tens of thousands of dollars on education, it helps to know what you're doing with it. Perhaps even more so in the case of a trade like cooking. Tuition is high and average salaries for many jobs in the food service industry are low. A cost-benefit analysis for culinary school tuition will calculate differently for the cook who plans to work their way up the line in a New York City restaurant and the cook who wants to take a higher-paying corporate or private chef gig.
There are all kinds of jobs available to culinary school grads: working in all facets of a restaurant, from the line to the host stand to the wine cellar, pastry kitchen, and beyond; research and development for a corporation like McDonald's; overseeing the kitchen at a hotel, resort or on a cruise liner; and so much more. During the 2011-2012 academic year at the Culinary Institute of America, about 54 percent of incoming freshmen expressed interest in working in some capacity at an independent restaurant upon graduation, according to communications director Jeff Levine. Another 27 percent were interested in working at hotels or resorts, while 17 percent were considering careers at restaurant chains or other corporate food jobs. But, according to Levine, about 70 to 80 percent of CIA graduates do go to work in restaurant or hotel/resort kitchens when they leave Hyde Park.
So what are the average salary expectations for these two career paths? Well, according to the most recent Chef Salary Report on StarChefs.com, in 2010 an executive chef could stand to make $65,983 ($81,039 in hotels), a chef de cuisine had an average salary of $51,114 ($55,405 in hotels), a sous chef made $39,478 ($42,906 in hotels) and a pastry chef made $43,123 ($46,547 in hotels). For those hotel and corporate chefs who are making more than those who work in restaurants, culinary school may be less of a financial challenge.
It's worth pointing out, though, that it often takes years of working as a line cook for grim hourly wages before making that kind of money. And the survey notes that while salary levels for those who had obtained culinary degrees or certifications are higher than non-grads, it warns that "the salary gap — while increasing — isn't as big as you might think."
by Amy McKeever, Eater | Read more:
Photo: Daniel Krieger
