NYT: Student loans, high hopes crush young chefs

[Robin Garr]

<i>This story's worth reading. I understand the issues it raises are a very serious problem right here in River City, where students can come out of Sullivan owing $60K in student loans and looking forward to $8/hour kitchen jobs</i>.

'Top Chef' Dreams Crushed by Student Loan Debt
By KIM SEVERSON
Published: May 8, 2007

Rick Park started working at a Jack in the Box in Austin, Tex., when he was 18. He moved on to sub shops, pizza parlors and chain restaurants, turning out hundreds of meals during a shift.

But Mr. Park wanted to be a chef. So like tens of thousands of other young people who grew up in the age of kitchen celebrities like Bobby Flay and Emeril Lagasse, he enrolled in culinary school.

Two years after graduation, all the "Bam!" has been drained from the dream. Mr. Park makes $10.50 an hour at a bistro in Austin best known for its French fries, trying to pay down his student loans. While he dodges phone calls from the bank, his mother helps him make his $705 monthly payments, almost twice his weekly take-home pay.

"I wouldn't wish this on anyone," Mr. Park, 29, said before starting another night shift at the Hyde Park Bar and Grill. "I put my degree on applications, and they make fun of me for it."

Full story in The New York Times

This is a good story about what young graduates have to face. I was lucky enough to get out after two quarters before Sullivan put a huge hole in my future. I feel really bad for some of these guys that have to dig out of these huge financial holes with very little income. Its almost like they push you off the boat in the middle of the ocean and throw you a noodle and tell you to get going.

I have come across the same attitude with Art Schools. My son wants to be a anime artist. Wow, the Art schools we have talked to have had huge bills and claim to have excellent job prospects, but when I ask to speak to working graduates....cricket sounds....hemming and hawing...."we'll get back to you". Lots of information on how to borrow the $$$ for the program in the packets. Looks like he is going to JCTC or IVTech (assuming he graduates, whole 'nother story! ).

I have given some thought to going to culionary school after I retire, but the cost is a stunner. Maybe JCTC for me, too!

I know we had this discussion on the previous forum. I do not regret going to culinary school, but then I don't work in a restaurant and don't plan to.

I was also lucky enough to get thru Sullivan without taking out loans. I also read the fine print, and no one over there will tell you, but if you have college work you can transfer in, they will take those credits and reduce your bill.

Also you can challenge classes. For a $25 fee, you can try to "test out." I challenged 5 or 6 classes and passed the test for all but one. One challenge was for a baking class and lab, so that really reduced my tuition bill in the long run. I also took an online Nutrition class and that helped me not to have to take the Nutrition class in school. Same thing with ServeSafe and Sanitation. If your employer will pay for you to take the class for your job, then you can (probably) get credit for it in culinary school.

Anything you can transfer in, test out of, or talk your way out of reduces your bill. (I had 2 years of college French, which I successfully argued was the language of haute cusine, and talked my way out of the required Spanish class.) I actually got a refund check from Sullivan after I graduated because of all the classes I wound up not having to take.

Read the fine print and find ways to reduce your bill. Sullivan also charges you a set fee per semester, so load up with as many classses as you can possibly get thru and you can get out faster. I had a friend cut his bill that way, and he also got a refund check after graduation.

Leah,
If someone would ask a professional to give a culinary student some advice for the future..... you win the prize hands down. That is the best advise I have seen come across in print in a very long time!!!

$30,000 dollars for 18 months! Ha! That is Ludicrous!

Thanks on behalf of everyone who finds your information helpful!

School is a business. I learned that the hardway, just as this person did. Unfortunately its part of this so called "game". I find that libraries are free and experience beats higher learning everytime. I think perhaps the person in the article has figured that out, too late, as well. I guess one has to figure out a lot of things about ones field of interest (since it is not limited to culinary arts school but pretty much a ubiquitous argument) before one can make the decision that expensive schooling is the only way or what Leah did and really did some homework to cut costs. I guess that's why the advertisment for going to schools and paying for an education is so ubiquitous. They say they wont hire you unless you have school, then when you get school, they wont hire you because you don't have experience. ha! Almost like colleges have a monopoly on most peoples future.

Leah,
If someone would ask a professional to give a culinary student some advice for the future..... you win the prize hands down. That is the best advise I have seen come across in print in a very long time!!!

$30,000 dollars for 18 months! Ha! That is Ludicrous!

Thanks on behalf of everyone who finds your information helpful!

My dad forwarded me the link to the NYTimes article with the message: 'I knew you could feel their pain...'

He couldn't be more right.



My total Sullivan tuition ran $38,500.
Mind you, this was including student housing costs which I'm sure jacked that even higher.

I've heard reports that Sullivan is charging in the ballpark of $50,000 now these days.

Oh, and that new Bank opening at the intersection of Shelbyville, Breckinridge, Chenoweth, Lexington and Frankfort?
Rumor has it that A.R. Sullivan owns the bank.
What do you bet they start offering the private loans through his bank?
He wins if they pay, or don't!


All told, at graduation I had $25,000 in federal loan debt, and $10,000 in private loan debt.
And I'm pretty sure professionally and financially, i'm doing much better than a lot of kids i went to school with.
I can only imagine how hard some of them are struggling, because i know i have and still do sometimes.

I'm not sure what the solution is to the tension between the high cost of paying for schooling and the fact that schools are expensive businesses to run.

Buildings have to be built. Equipment and supplies have to be bought. Utilities have to be paid. Faculty, administrators and staff have to be paid.

One of the reasons there are so many adjunct faculty in this country today is that schools can't afford to hire as many full-time faculty as it takes to meet the demands of student enrollment.

When I started my PhD program at Loyola in Chicago a gazillion years ago, we were all told we'd have jobs galore waiting for us because so many tenured professors were on the verge of retiring. What we didn't know was that schools everywhere were moving into our current era of hiring adjunct faculty to replace them rather than hiring full-timers with tenure tracks. And it's my overwhelming impression that most students and parents of students still don't understand how that works, that so many of the "professors" teaching their classes are part-timers who get paid next to nothing and get to do it with usually little resources or office space, no administrative support, and no benefits. As adjunct faculty, you're lucky to get a mailbox.

On the one hand, I get that. I understand that schools are expensive places to run. On the other hand, some degrees don't have quite the return on the investment you've been told they will. But on the other hand (that makes three, I think), it's probably best all around to consider education worthy just for its own sake and then decide how much money you want to spend without any equivalent sort of monetary return on the investment. I've come to think of it as a whole nother sort of investment.

Dunno. Maybe that's just a sort of exercise in salving the pain, but it works for me. But then again, I finally paid off my loans after years and so it doesn't irritate as much as it used to.

[Robin Garr]

Oh, and that new Bank opening at the intersection of Shelbyville, Breckinridge, Chenoweth, Lexington and Frankfort?
Rumor has it that A.R. Sullivan owns the bank.

That would be Eclipse Bank, and your sources are wrong, I think. Mr. Sullivan is one board member, but only one among quite a few heavy hitters, and board members aren't "owners."

Eclipse Bank officers

Eclipse Bank board

I was introduced to Eclipse through references in this forum, and based on that and our own inquiry, we've moved all our business and personal accounts there. They're highly service-oriented and offer a lot of advantages that the bigger competition can't or won't meet. Yet.

Oh, and that new Bank opening at the intersection of Shelbyville, Breckinridge, Chenoweth, Lexington and Frankfort?
Rumor has it that A.R. Sullivan owns the bank.
What do you bet they start offering the private loans through his bank?
He wins if they pay, or don't!

He may be *an* owner, but certainly not *the* owner. It's a pretty long list of local business folks that are owners and directors.

Oh, and that new Bank opening at the intersection of Shelbyville, Breckinridge, Chenoweth, Lexington and Frankfort?
Rumor has it that A.R. Sullivan owns the bank.

That would be Eclipse Bank, and your sources are wrong, I think. Mr. Sullivan is one board member, but only one among quite a few heavy hitters, and board members aren't "owners."

Eclipse Bank officers

Eclipse Bank board

I was introduced to Eclipse through references in this forum, and based on that and our own inquiry, we've moved all our business and personal accounts there. They're highly service-oriented and offer a lot of advantages that the bigger competition can't or won't meet. Yet.

Oops ... didn't see your response before posting mine, Robin. Sorry! (and, in this case I do think board members are significant shareholders, although you are right that it is not always so - although it should be, in my opinion!)

I'm not sure this conundrum is unique to the culinary world. There are lots of reports of young people borrowing tons of money to go to college and graduate school only to find that the jobs that await them do not pay enough to repay these loans while simultaneously paying rent, gas, insurance, etc. This is one big reason that so many grads return to live at home.

I'm not sure this conundrum is unique to the culinary world. There are lots of reports of young people borrowing tons of money to go to college and graduate school only to find that the jobs that await them do not pay enough to repay these loans while simultaneously paying rent, gas, insurance, etc. This is one big reason that so many grads return to live at home.

I totally agree, Ron.

I also agree. Since getting a BA and moving back here after giving up my (what I didn't realize then) great government job, I now make half as much as I did before I became "educated," have to work 2 jobs, and will be paying off my tuition costs probably for the rest of my life. The job market just really sucks out there, and I just don't have any business networking connections in this town, so the good jobs go to people who may be less qualified, but know somebody. If I could go back and do it all again, I definitely would have gone to vocational school--there is always a market for people with great skills in those fields.

The job market just really sucks out there, and I just don't have any business networking connections in this town, so the good jobs go to people who may be less qualified, but know somebody.

I will admit that I haven't been in a job search for many years, but I really wonder what's up when I hear someone say this. The unemployment rate is the lowest it has been in years, and the media is constantly saying that this year's college grads have the best job market in years. I know the job growth for technology-related industries is hot, as is most of the finance world. I do hope that Tanya finds something appropriate, and that the market is better than what she has experienced thus far.