The scandal of $50,000 culinary 'degrees'
Disillusioned students are speaking out against for-profit schools offering advanced degrees in culinary arts and other disciplines, and lawmakers are taking on the Wall Street bankers who are profiting.
Ronald Holden
Ronald Holden
Ronald Holden
Peter Lamb, a successful entrepreneur who has opened half a dozen Seattle restaurants, stands outside his latest, Belltown's Branzino, making sure the sidewalk tables are properly set. "I never hire cooks. I hire dishwashers, train them, and promote them," he says.
"A kid can come to work for me tomorrow as a dishwasher, and after two years, he's a $13- or $14-an-hour line cook. That same kid, if he goes to culinary school, graduates two years later, $50,000 in debt, and he's lucky to get a job for $9 an hour."
And still, culinary students keep coming. They come from middle-class suburbs, from broken marriages, from minimum-wage jobs, or straight out of high school. They come because they think it's glamorous to work in a professional kitchen. They come with the hope of a better life, because they dream of the Food Network, of being a Top Chef. Some sign up for the culinary programs at community colleges; many more enroll in expensive private academies, institutes and cooking schools.
Why? Because there's no formal apprenticeship system in this country for a trade like restaurant chef, where the traditional career path was to start at the restaurant's back door, in the dish pit — the way they do at Lamb's establishments. It used to be, if you kept showing up, you'd get moved up after a few months to busser, or to a prep station, earning your stripes by doing every dirty job. Most restaurants these days feed their staff, but few pay more than minimum wage, and a share of tips for kitchen staff is iffy at best.
And so they come to the institutes, despite the lousy odds, despite the astonishingly high prices, akin to a year at Harvard. The primary reason they can do it: the ready availability of student loans for tuition.
Back in December, a for-profit school in Portland, the Western Culinary Institute, was the target of a lawsuit claiming, among other things, that graduates could not find work in the field after they had spent $20,000 to $40,000 in tuition, or that they made no more money after attending the school than before.
The case, which the school has declined to discuss, could cover as many as 2,000 former students. It's been certified as a class-action lawsuit and is working its way through the Oregon courts. The suit is a warning shot indicating skirmishes to come between the well-connected industry of for-profit schools and disillusioned students. One such conflict has escalated to an all-out war between the federal government and Wall Street bankers.
Here in Seattle, in a little-noticed development at the end of July, the American Federation of Teachers lost an election to represent the faculty at the Art Institute of Seattle. Teachers had complained that the school was putting more emphasis on recruiting students than on teaching them properly. The high cost of tuition was another concern, the union said: An "associate degree" in photography or culinary arts costs close to $60,000; a bachelor's degree in fashion design costs more than $80,000.
Only the Seattlepi.com covered the issue. Although the school gave in to the faculty's request for updated computer equipment; the AFT blamed the unexpected outcome on aggressive union-busting by the Art Institute's parent company, Education Management Corporation (EDMC). The Art Institute's director of communications, Mark Livingston, declined to comment.
As it turns out, EDMC's largest shareholder, holding 38 percent of its stock, is none other than Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street firm that recently agreed to pay $550 million to settle civil-fraud charges related to the subprime mortgage meltdown. According to Bloomberg News, Goldman Sachs is heavily invested in this controversial for-profit education industry, and now finds itself under attack not only from Congress and the Obama administration but from dissatisfied students as well.
Most students take out loans to pay their tuition, resulting in high levels of debt. For the past couple of decades, student loan debt has been "guaranteed" by a variety of government agencies, just like mortgages, resulting in a wave of subprime loans that students may never be able to pay back. A full-time restaurant cook (a rarity in a turbulent industry) is lucky to make $20,000 a year, which makes paying back $50,000 worth of student loans within 10 years of graduation virtually impossible.
Bloomberg News explains further:
A proposed government crackdown may have a disproportionate effect on EDMC. The U.S. Department of Education may restrict taxpayer-funded grants and loans to for-profit colleges like EDMC that offer $50,000 associate's and $100,000 bachelor's degrees in such low-paying fields as cooking, art and design.
"Government grants and loans to students, combined with booming enrollment, have made for-profit colleges a rewarding investment," the article continues. According to Bloomberg and the Education Department, EDMC receives over 80 percent of its revenue from federal financial-aid programs, programs that prop up the entire for-profit college industry to the tune of over $25 billion a year.
Goldman Sachs isn't the only player. Career Education Corp. operates 80 for-profit campuses with 90,000 students around the U.S., including 18 schools licensed by Paris-based Le Cordon Bleu.
Western in Portland is a CEC campus. The corporation's Seattle area affiliate is the American Kitchen Academy in Kent, which charges about $20,000 a year for a two-year diploma. Julia Child trained at the original Cordon Bleu in Paris, but the school has since been sold to culinary entrepreneur André Cointreau, who extended its agreement with CEC for five years in 2009 despite complaints that CEC was using deceptive practices to enroll students and misleading them about job prospects for graduates.
One notable exception to this pattern is the prestigious Culinary Institute of America, a four-year professional college with a Hudson valley campus in New York and a Napa Valley campus in California. Tuition comes to about $30,000 a year (housing adds another $15,000), but CIA grads get snapped up by big-city restaurants that can afford to pay a living wage.
Community colleges, often derided as college-lite, also provide a respectable, well-rounded culinary education, and not just "knife skills." The programs at two of Seattle's community colleges, at the Central campus (called Seattle Culinary Academy) and at South Seattle, are particularly well regarded, primarily because their instructors have excellent reputations as chefs. South also has an excellent wine technology program.
The biggest reason to attend a community college, however, is probably the cost: 10 to 20 percent of what the for-profit schools charge. A student who attends full-time for seven quarters will earn an Associate of Applied Science degree for no more than $10,000. More students at community colleges stick with the entire program, too, while students at for-profit schools are more likely to quit. What's more, community college programs have a better reputation with restaurant managers, who are happy to hire graduates for entry-level positions.
And what of home cooks, who might only want to know the techniques of tenderizing pot roast or the mechanics of making meatloaf? Professional courses aside, there's no shortage of advice online, and plenty of recreational cooking classes around Seattle, offered by cookware shops such as Magnolia's Dish It Up, restaurants like La Mondellina, and independent cooking schools like the Blue Ribbon Cooking & Culinary Center on Lake Union. The cost of a class is usually $60 to $100, often includes wine, and is more like a night at a restaurant than a master class — the difference being that there's no pretense of a professional credential.
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Comments:
Posted Fri, Aug 20, 8:37 a.m. Inappropriate
Recessionary times cause a lot of frustration among job seekers, who at some point are going to say that they'll do whatever it takes to get an edge. That's where there's the potential to be taken advantage of. Many students go back to school without a real clear plan or sense of how that schooling fits into the larger goals. For example, if you want to learn certain computer skills and are bright and self-motivated, self-teaching might be an easier and less expensive option than taking a class.
It's not the easiest thing to do research into the job market and find out what employers really want, but it's critical to do that when trying to get into a field.
Posted Fri, Aug 20, 9:15 a.m. Inappropriate
Good lord. How about a sense of personal responsibility here? Nobody is forcing these people to attend these schools or to borrow money to do so.
When has any graduate --- of a public school, private school or for-profit school --- been guaranteed a job after graduation? How about "never" (military schools excepted).
These people should stop whining, recognize that they may have made a mistake, and get to work.
Posted Fri, Aug 20, 10:06 a.m. Inappropriate
PJS, the 'for profit' colleges do make statements like "90% of our graduates get great jobs" so the expectations are high after you have spent a ridiculous sum of money that you employers will be waiting for you after your graduation.
I have attended City U. and U. of Phoenix and I have heard statements about how they have employers just waiting to recruit from graduates of certain degrees; which is BS. Of course these private schools never go on record as guaranteeing employment but they do everything short of it. Having experienced those two schools I know their education is more about convenience and expediency than quality. I also attended the SSCC culinary program and it does have a lot to offer but you really do have to be a super star of epic talent to get more than a substandard rate of pay once you enter the real world. The SSCC program did get more than a few people from the Art Institute who were amazed at how much more they learned in less time. It sounded like the Art Institute promoted a lengthy, slower process just to keep the dollars rolling in for a longer period of time.
Posted Fri, Aug 20, 10:36 a.m. Inappropriate
PJS: "These people should stop whining, recognize that they may have made a mistake, and get to work." Wow... Either you've never been unemployed or you're really good at getting fired and rehired on a regular basis. These people ARE TRYING to get to work. As for their mistake, I guess you're saying it's their responsibility to weed out predatory practices against the unemployed. We(that includes you)are all one paycheck away from the plight of these people. I know. I've been there.
Posted Fri, Aug 20, 11:43 a.m. Inappropriate
Many of the 'ethnic restaurants' around here appear to be family operations with lots of non-English speaking relatives and extended family members with the visible jobs. Maybe there is a bias against culinary school degrees.
Posted Fri, Aug 20, 11:57 a.m. Inappropriate
I'm sure you're right, animalal, that there's a bias against culinary school degrees in certain quarters. The story's not about that, though; it's about predatory loans to people who want to work as cooks in restaurants.
Interesting story on Boston.com today about another exciting way to earn culinary credentials: prison. Read it "a href="http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/08/20/the_joy_and_freedom_of_cooking/" target="_blank">here.
Posted Fri, Aug 20, 12:51 p.m. Inappropriate
Did anyone notice the ads from schools at the bottom of the page? The record of what the schools say is mixed. People could read more carefully, but the disclaimers are not any stronger than any other school would give, which is a problem considering how costly they are.
Here are the ads:
Culinary SchoolsCulinary-Schools.collegebound.net
Request Free Information from Culinary Schools In Your Area!
Le Cordon Bleu® Schoolwww.Chefs.com
Hands-On Culinary Arts Education. New Classes Start Sept 27-Apply Now
The Art Instituteswww.artinstitutes.eduLive Your Passion - Pursue a Fashion Design Degree.
Chef EducationLeCordonBleuCollege-Seattle.comTrain for Your Culinary Arts Career LeCordonBleu Seattle. Official Site
Here's some text from the first page, which is a site called "college bound".
With education from culinary schools, you can often bypass the lower-skilled kitchen jobs and move right into a cook or chef position. Formal culinary training can also make your resume more appetizing to upscale restaurant employers. Plus, culinary schools typically require an internship with a local restaurant or other food preparation facility, which provides the real-world experience you'll need to catapult your culinary career.
I also clicked on the link from the Cordon Bleu page. It went to an overall site.
http://www.chefs.com/Education.aspx?src=c33269&gclid;=CNa9ooDpyKMCFRJjgwodyQbMug
If you then click on the link for the school in Tukwila, you get a very direct statement, twice:
Le Cordon Bleu Training at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Seattle does not guarantee employment or salary.
This is the first link.
http://www.collegebound.net/culinary-school-guide/?gclid=CI3HlKnoyKMCFR5ggwodPB-Hsw&referer;=http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-1904088086641781&output;=html&h;=250&slotname;=0597923238&w;=300&lmt;=1282333351&flash;=10.1.53.64&url;=http%3A%2F%2Fcrosscut.com%2F2010%2F08%2F20%2Feducation%2F20074%2FThe-scandal-of-%2450%2C000-culinary--degrees--%2F%23comments&dt;=1282333351714&shv;=r20100812&correlator;=1282333351716&frm;=0&adk;=1975527755&ga;_vid=888868551.1279980830&ga;_sid=1282332723&ga;_hid=1116116306&ga;_fc=1&u;_tz=-420&u;_his=5&u;_java=1&u;_h=720&u;_w=1280&u;_ah=680&u;_aw=1280&u;_cd=32&u;_nplug=0&u;_nmime=0&biw;=1248&bih;=497&ref;=http%3A%2F%2Fcrosscut.com%2F&fu;=0&ifi;=1&dtd;=45&xpc;=98lqr1sAQW&p;=http%3A//crosscut.com&campaign;_id=12508918&
Posted Fri, Aug 20, 1:03 p.m. Inappropriate
Thanks for a good article. I'm glad these schools are getting more -I was going to say press, but with their massive budget for publicity they get plenty of press, I'm glad they are getting more SCRUTINY.
Ultimately, these schools are about profit so that colors everything, including how classes are conducted. People I know who have taught in these schools speak about wildly unprepared students being admitted, about failing students being retained (NO ONE fails) and about curriculm tending towards the light and fluffy so as not to discourage anyone.
The for-profit schools' massive advertising and PR budgets fund a lot of attention that competing community college programs can't dream of matching. Check out how many times the (very understaffed) Seattle Times has run a story on the Art Institute culinary program vs. SCCC. The barrage of press releases gets attention.
Ultimately, these programs are about getting more dollars in the door and keeping them there.
The target audience is students from families with little higher ed experience. Which would be great if they were helping these kids along, but mainly they are relying on the families inexperience in judging comparitive quality of colleges. The for-profit programs always have a higher profile(commercials, events, press releases) but it is student tuition which is paying for all this. The community colleges, hands down, have better programs at a tenth of the cost.
Also, a story early this week noted that stock prices of these for-profits dropped this week on news that Federal Loan repayment rates are poor. If these schools lose access to Federal loans, they'd be out of business. Look for some massive lobbying in the near future.
Not a fan.
Posted Fri, Aug 20, 1:57 p.m. Inappropriate
My apologies that the link to Boston.com above got all curdled. I like the "Joy of Cooking" in the headline, should have watched the sauce more carefully, sorry!
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/08/20/the_joy_and_freedom_of_cooking
Posted Fri, Aug 20, 6:10 p.m. Inappropriate
Arts Institute of Seattle gives prospects graduate salary data, and employment rates. With an average graduating salary in all their bachelor programs of $35,000, none of it seems unrealistic. Perhaps we really need a standardized way of tracking success.
Posted Sat, Aug 21, 7:12 a.m. Inappropriate
Is there going to be an article about Students at State run Universities with massive debt, who try to enter the Social Work field? How about Teaching? Music?
Posted Sat, Aug 21, 6:29 p.m. Inappropriate
Cross-posted at DailyKos here with several dozen comments in the first couple of hours.
Posted Fri, Feb 1, 7:37 p.m. Inappropriate
I just want to add as a student in the Arts Institute in Portland OR what a dreadful school it is. Tutors with little to now teaching ability, academia that has no link to cuisine, students not allowed to take items made in school home-despite having to pay for the raw ingredients. Interestingly tutors take these items home, or to social events or even worse the AI use items made by and paid for by students for their open days- talk of bad ethics.
Had I had researched more I would have had a better education by following a book, and using Youtube for demonstrations. The school is a rip off. To all potential students please do not make the expensive mistake I have.
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