I was watcing some tv this afternoon, and saw the commercial for Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts Minneapolis.  As a Le Cordon Bleu (Western Culinary Institute, Portland), I have some issues with the way the commercial presents the school and industry.

-In the commercial and on their website, they claim “the restaurant industry now employs nearly 13 million people and is expected to add two million jobs over the next decade.” (National Restaurant Association, 2009)  This might be a bit of an exaggeration.  The NY Times reported that the job market for cooks is declining, and as Adam Vickerman found out when he posted for jobs, there are a lot of unemployed cooks out there.  Also, it’s becoming common knowledge that many restaurants are failing, either due to the economy or other factors.  The fact is that there are a lot of unemployed or underemployed cooks out there.

-An ad for Le Cordon Bleu states, “take your passion to an exciting career as a chef or pastry chef. (Le Cordon Bleu Atlanta commercal)  I recall my first day of culinary school where the chef told us that we would graduate and be offered chef or sous chef positions.  This is not the case.  The language in some of the other commercals and on the website are more ambigious, using words like ‘could’ and ‘will take you to become…’ but I have never been offered a chef or sous chef position solely on my attendance of culinary school.  The positions I’ve held were because of experiance on the line and as a manager.

-One thing that is never discussed in these commercals or at the school is income potential.  This is probably because the average line cook makes somewhere between $8 and $14 per hour or about $16,000 to $30,000 yearly.(Dept. of Labor, 2007)  However, as one gets more management resposibility (chef or sous chef), the pay scale usually goes up dramatically (average 40,000, Dept of Labor, 2007), but so do the hours.  Considering I paid $39,000 (42,500 at LCB Minneapolis, subject to change)to attend, the low pay scale might not be too tempting with those kinds of loans hanging over one’s head.

All of this being said, I was fully aware of what I was getting into when I chose my career and culinary school, and going to school did benefit me.  But I feel that the ads and admission process for LCB misleads many prospective students.  For example, the Career Education Corporation (which owns LCB) was sued in 2007 for “the quality of its program and overstating the job prospects of the academy’s graduates.” (The Chronicle of Higher Education, Oct. 1, 2007)

Just my $0.02