Posted on 08/30/2018 9:12:49 AM PDT by 11th_VA
For Alexandria Butler-McDow, 28, going to university didn’t provide the freedom and financial security she'd hoped for. After graduating with an associate’s degree from the California Culinary Academy (CCA) in San Francisco, CA, in 2008, Butler-McDow struggled to find a job that would allow her to support herself and her disabled mother while also paying off her enormous student loan bill.
Hopeful that a more advanced degree would help her make more money and better manage her debt, Butler-McDow went on to pursue a bachelor’s degree in culinary nutrition, concentrating on clinical dietetics at Johnson and Wales University (JWU) in Providence, RI. By the time she had finished her second degree, Butler-McDow was even deeper in debt.
Now, nearly four years after graduating with her second degree, Butler-McDow (better known as Chef Alexandria at Better Taste Productions) is a Los Angeles-based chef and culinary consultant focusing on nutrition and education — and she is still six figures in debt. Though she has defaulted on her loans and deferred some of her payments, the end of this ordeal is still out of her reach. “We are sold the notion that getting an education is what will improve our socioeconomic standing,” Butler-McDow told Refinery29. “My degrees were supposed to bring me out of poverty but they’ve just anchored me.” ...
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
$100,000.00 into debt to learn to cook?
A client 30 years ago, had $100,000 for his retirement and he was only 50 - went to cooking school for $50,000 and never got a job, one owner said - do you really think I am going to hire a guy just getting into the business when I have these guys working 12 hours a day and $10 an hour - that know what working the kitchen is like?
Some people just do not think -
He should a passport and emigrate because that is the only way that he as a slave can escape the debt plantation.
The Richest of the Rich still panic when their Toilet won’t Flush or they have no Hot Water.
The good news is they will pay the Plumber whatever it takes to save them.
I'll content myself with my $9k AA degree in Business from my local community college.
Hi Amanda,
Get another $12,000 and enroll at Commercial Diving Technologies LLC in Florida. They will train you to become a commercial diver/underwater welder in a few short months. They have an almost 100% placement rate and you will be able to repay the $100k that you wasted. The job market is booming world wide and naturally the pay is sky-high.
Less than two years ago, I got swindled by a crooked company and was all set to go to truck driving school so I would have income after unemployment ran out. But just weeks before Trump took office, I got my first serious interview in my professional field and started work the following month.
I am now making well over what the sleazy crooks paid me and they had to hire two people to replace me. Bravo for the Trump economy!
Throw in a bachelors degree and call it 30k. Wow.
My niece worked hard to get into UC Berkeley. She wanted to get a degree in Engineering. Well, within six months she changed her major to ‘Celtic Studies’. Boy O Boy, the job market for everything Irish is Astounding!
Well at 28 maybe she is still pretty enough to flop on her back from some sugar daddy to pay off her debt. Maybe she can cook for him.
“If all else fails, Johnson & Wales”
A lot of culinary degrees are in Hotel Management which is a type of business degree. I would also suggest that a culinary degree is a business degree - believe me, if you think it is just learning to make omelets, it is not. Most of your time is learning how to manage restaurants and catering halls. Endless algebra and economics classes!
According to Wikipedia, the for-profit California Culinary Academy has been in trouble since 2011. Part of their problem was their failure to live up to placement expectations.
Attorney Ray Gallo, the attorney who represented the plaintiffs, has offered the following opinion: “It is a ridiculous business decision to attend one of these schools.” “The whole thing doesn’t make economic sense. They know it and they don’t tell you.” (“Students Sue Schaumburg-Based Le Cordon Bleu,” Daily Herald, Sept. 6, 2011).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Culinary_Academy
==
Alexandria should have done better research before signing the contract.
If I was to adjust for inflation for when I finished school, I finished with about $15K to $20K in debt and got my first IT job immediately after finishing school (before the graduation ceremony). But then, I worked full time in a warehouse the whole time I was in college (so I had work experience long before I graduated). Plus I got a BS in computer science — a degree that actually mattered in the workforce.
Why does this have to always degenerate into really nasty stuff? There is an anti-women thing on FR that really turns me off.
[Don’t most chefs make under $60,000 unless their the head chef?]
It’s the sh*ttiest lifestyle too.
Long hours, barely a day off, forget about having holidays off. And yeah, unless you’re the head chef, you’re basically a peon in the kitchen, one step up above the dishwasher.
I LOVE to cook, but no way in hell would I ever want to do it as a career.
How does one go into $100// debt with an associates degree? Duh.
Modern college degrees: the biggest stinker since open sewers.
Old Joke:
What’s the first thing a graduate with a 4 year degree majoring in (fill in the blank)_______”Studies” says, first day on the job?
“Would you like fries with that order?”
[Black Women for Wellness
8/2013 - 6/2014 Kitchen Diva Program Coordinator/ Kitchen Diva Chef]
Seriously????
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