jtobin625 wrote: I visited Elgin CC and Washburne and the facilities in both were amazing and at a fraction of the cost of some of the schools I used to work for throughout the 2000's. As easy as it is to say to enroll in the community colleges, you still need to be a resident within that area.

In a lot of the community colleges, the residency requirement is as little as moving into the county for 30 days. Most four year universities require residency of ONE YEAR.

David Chang observes, "You're fucked if you go to cooking school and that's your only option" -- http://eater.com/archives/2013/07/11/da ... broken.php

Excellent interview - thanks for posting.

David Hammond wrote:David Chang observes, "You're fucked if you go to cooking school and that's your only option" -- http://eater.com/archives/2013/07/11/da ... broken.php

Sounds like he's describing the problem with higher education in general - not just cooking schools.

For some of the larger non-profit culinary schools, there seems to be a revolving door sort of arrangement with a lot of the corporate food companies and hotels. Basically, what happens is once they graduate cooking school they get paid anywhere from $75,000 to, say, $100,000 to work at resort like Beaver Creek or Kona Hawaii. Any beautiful place. They're going to put them up, they're going to pay them a lot of money, and they're going to subsidize their housing. And they're going to do that for two years. They'll work in corporate hotel kitchen where they're not going to learn intuition. They're going to have a fun time, absolutely.

I get what he's saying, but that seems like a pretty good gig to me. All things considered, it's better to get paid 75k to learn nothing for two years than to pay someone else 100k to learn a useless degree. Do those jobs really exist, or is it hyperbole?

Independent George wrote:

David Hammond wrote:David Chang observes, "You're fucked if you go to cooking school and that's your only option" -- http://eater.com/archives/2013/07/11/da ... broken.php

Sounds like he's describing the problem with higher education in general - not just cooking schools.

For some of the larger non-profit culinary schools, there seems to be a revolving door sort of arrangement with a lot of the corporate food companies and hotels. Basically, what happens is once they graduate cooking school they get paid anywhere from $75,000 to, say, $100,000 to work at resort like Beaver Creek or Kona Hawaii. Any beautiful place. They're going to put them up, they're going to pay them a lot of money, and they're going to subsidize their housing. And they're going to do that for two years. They'll work in corporate hotel kitchen where they're not going to learn intuition. They're going to have a fun time, absolutely.

I get what he's saying, but that seems like a pretty good gig to me. All things considered, it's better to get paid 75k to learn nothing for two years than to pay someone else 100k to learn a useless degree. Do those jobs really exist, or is it hyperbole?

Really. I mean, think about the amount of you folks screwed right out of college in the job market, then tell me about what an ass you are for being 22, getting paid a good wage for "pimping out". In Hawaii!!!!

Something tells me there is something wrong with this Chang guy.

What he's saying is that they go and earn a lot of money at these jobs, but don't learn what it takes to cook in a small, stand-alone-restaurant kitchen, which is their ultimate goal. So when they go to try to work in one, they do not succeed.

leek wrote:What he's saying is that they go and earn a lot of money at these jobs, but don't learn what it takes to cook in a small, stand-alone-restaurant kitchen, which is their ultimate goal. So when they go to try to work in one, they do not succeed.

In two years. One can't pay off their massive student loans degrading themselves in Hawaii for two years and then not start in a small,stand-alone-restaurant that can only hire a finite amount of people anyway? I think what he is saying is not based in reality.

No way a recent culinary school grad makes 75-100k + housing.

How long do you think a large resort would be able to stay in business by paying the entire brigade 75+K? Think Walmart and McDonalds.

An experienced hotel Exec Sous of such a resort might make 75, but probably works for less to get it on the resume.

Maybe $15 an hour + a dorm room in remote resort areas where the labor pool is insufficIent.

$10 an hour with no benefits in Chicago.

Evil Ronnie wrote:No way a recent culinary school grad makes 75-100k + housing.

How long do you think a large resort would be able to stay in business by paying the entire brigade 75+K? Think Walmart and McDonalds.

An experienced hotel Exec Sous of such a resort might make 75, but probably works for less to get it on the resume.

Maybe $15 an hour + a dorm room in remote resort areas where the labor pool is insufficIent.

$10 an hour with no benefits in Chicago.

Now THAT sounds realistic.