Is Culinary School Worth the Cost?

the most important thing you learn in school is to mark your knives; cat tape optional 

You meet a lot of different people working in a kitchen. It's a real motley crew, not unlike when Frodo was putting together the fellowship of the ring. We'll take a starving artist, an ex-con, a highly neurotic, an extreme narcissist, and sure, throw a normal guy in there for the heck of it.

When I started working in kitchens, I always asked my colleagues if they went to culinary school. Being in a program myself at the time, I was curious to see if it was worth it or if I was wasting my money. While it's a real mixed bag of characters, there's a pretty clear divide between those who are doing this for their chosen career and those who just stumbled into it. Among the devoted who rate food at the top of their list -any list- in life (myself included) there's not a firm answer regarding culinary school. I've worked under chefs who've gone to the Culinary Institute of America, and alongside those who got a job in a kitchen at 15 and never left because they fell in love with it. It's two different ways of thinking, but neither is wrong or unwelcome.

To determine if culinary school is the right fit for you, you have to know what you want out of life. It's tricky because what 18 year old can see where they'll be in ten years? Shit, what grown adult has that vision? Close your eyes, take a deep breath and ask yourself: where do I want my life to take me? 

Did this help? Probably not, I'm not a career counselor or life coach of any kind. I just know what worked for me, and when I made the decision to go back to school, I asked myself what I wanted to do now. What got me excited? It was really easy after that first step, where I concluded that cookies and croissants were the key to my happiness. 

Culinary programs have exploded in the last few years; Google "culinary school near me" and you'll find a bunch of programs in your area you didn't even know about. You have more options than you think and don't need to shell out tens of thousands of dollars. I have my baking and pastry associate from a community college in Boston and I don't begrudge the money I spent (around five thousand). I saw my time there as an opportunity to get comfortable in the kitchen with a professional chef to answer all my questions. 

So is culinary school worth it? The short answer: no. After a few years in the industry and having talked about it with various chefs and colleagues, I don't think it's worth the cost for the sole reason that working in kitchens doesn't pay well. You're lucky to start making anything above minimum wage. Even with the advent of the "celebrity chef" and "food personalities" that have no doubt boosted the increased interest in culinary programs, kitchen work is essentially blue collar and the pay reflects this.

If it's always been your dream to go to culinary school and you have a trust fund you can pay your tuition from, go nuts. But don't be discouraged if it's not something you can afford; this is a field where experience trumps education. Get a job at a restaurant and you're already closer to your goal than half of the people in culinary school.