Question: Do you need to go to culinary school and study full time to get qualified in America? Or do you have a subsidised "apprenticeship" type programme?
For example, in Australia you can study full time for a year, which I think is roughly $10k depending where you go, for a Cert III in commercial cookery (and the impression I've got so far is that most head chefs are dubious of anyone who's gone down that road). Alternatively you can sign up as an apprentice with an employer, work with them full time and do 1 day a week at school over 3 years, the cost is subsidised by the Australian government and on a sliding scale depending on a factor of things; this is what I'm doing now and the cost is roughly $600 a year, so $1800 all up. The only down side is the pay is **** (by Australian standards).