Um, I might suggest going to a cheaper community college sort of culinary school. I have a friend who went to the CCA in San Francisco, spent about 40-50k, and is paying over half of his monthly salary to student loans. He's been working about a year and a half for our company and has only gotten a 36 cent raise. It might be different at other schools, but still, the investment to payoff ratio sucks. I got 10/hr at my first job. I am now making 14 as an assistant, a year later. Which is enough to live on, but I could easily double that pay doing well... just about anything else. Even entry-level postal workers make 4 or 5 dollars more than me, so it's tempting to leave this field sometimes. The chef I was working under was making 17/hr, before she quit and found a job for $20.