Tag Archive for 'culinary school costs'

How to Make Culinary School Worth the Cost of Admission

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on August 6, 2010
in Culinary Schools
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cost of culinary schoolCulinary school costs can run upwards of $40,000 per year, depending on which institution you choose and the cost of living in the area. While there are less expensive options – including community college programs and short-term courses – the majority of culinary students graduate with at least a few thousand dollars of debt.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Although the culinary world can be competitive and offer fairly low starting wages, there are a few steps you can take to ensure that you get the most out of your investment.

  • Get a Degree: Diploma and certification courses are fine within the culinary world (especially when they come from schools like Le Cordon Bleu), but they aren’t very marketable when it comes to finding employment elsewhere. Earning an Associate, Bachelor, or even Master’s Degree can help you get a job not related to cooking, should you decide to someday change careers. These courses also usually have transferable credits, so you can carry your courses over to another school if you decide to change majors or professional goals.
  • Add Business Courses: Many of the highest-paying culinary jobs are available in hospitality management. To make yourself more viable in this particular market, you can either get a hospitality management degree or supplement your culinary training with business classes.
  • View Culinary School as a Step in the Journey, not a Destination: If you harbor visions of donning an Executive Chef label or stepping into Food Network stardom right out of culinary school, you might be in for a bit of a surprise. Going to culinary school isn’t the only thing you need to do to succeed; it’s one small part of a lifetime worth of work.
  • Work in a Restaurant First: Working in a restaurant – even if it’s just as a prep cook, waiter, or dishwasher – will help you get a better idea of how the food industry works and what you can expect out of a career in the field. You’ll get to know the hours, the level of activity, and the types of pay you can make right out of school. All this knowledge will help you make a better decision about how much time and money you’re willing to expend to get your education.

Culinary school doesn’t have to be expensive, and it doesn’t have to be the end of the road. As long as you know what to expect and you make contingency plans to ensure you have additional job options should your culinary goals take longer than you thought, the cost of a culinary education can be worth every penny.

Related Topics

Finding a Culinary School

Finding a Hospitality Management School

How to Get in to Culinary School

Published
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on February 5, 2010
in Culinary Schools
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How to Get Into Culinary SchoolGetting into culinary school can be as simple as filling out an application or as complicated as taking exams, undergoing interviews, and proving financial feasibility. How difficult or how easy your application process will be depends on where you go to school and your personal background. While you will need to check out each culinary program before you can know for certain what steps are required, there are a few things to consider before you pay that application fee.

Competition: Highly competitive culinary schools like the Institute of Culinary Education and Culinary Institute of America are going to be more difficult to get into than a vocational program located in almost every state. While these more prestigious programs may not require you to have a perfect high school grade point average or ten years of experience in the food industry, you may have to demonstrate your commitment to your culinary education through other types of experiences, including internships, volunteering efforts, seminars, and other related activities.

Academics: If you intend to get an Associate, Bachelor’s, or even Master’s degree in your chosen field of culinary study, you will need to submit documents like high school transcripts, letters of reference, and detailed applications (often with essays), and you may even need to take an admissions test. These are usually the same requirements that come with any type of education at a community college or public or private university.

Costs: The costs of culinary school can be high, and most schools want to make sure you know the ins and outs of your payment plan before you are admitted to the program. This means that in addition to paying around $50 for an application fee, you may need to sit down with one of the school’s financial advisors to map out what type of funding you’ll be receiving and how you will pay it back over the next five, ten, or even twenty years.

Getting into culinary school can be one of the most exciting times of your career. Although not getting into your desired program can be disappointing, remember that the culinary world is competitive after you graduate as well as before. You have to work hard and keep on trying in order to be a real success.