A young high school graduate wants to become a professional cook, but does not have the money to go to a cooking school. What should that young person do?

Do you want to be a professional chef? or just be a great cook for friends and family? In either case, practice is key. Cooking is one thing everyone thinks they can do, but very few are actually great at it. Cooking can be as elaborate and as laborious as you want it to be. If you want to be a professional, i'd recommend you to take up employment in a restaurant with a large kitchen. Agreed, you'll be peeling potatoes and chopping onions for months as a trainee cook, but hell.. you'll get damn good at the basic techniques. If you just want to be an amateur chef, practice every day at home. I couldn't even make a decent square meal until I left home at 17. but now, 7 years later, I consider myself quite adept at the culinary arts. Also, look for short term programs in your city that are focused on a certain kind of skill you find yourself lacking at. I recently found a 6 day butchering class that teaches you how to butcher a full pig. Also, there are tons of websites and blogs aimed at amateur cooks. Read/ watch and implement. Cooking, like swimming can be mastered only by doing. Bon Appetit!

Volunteer at a local homeless shelter or soup kitchen. Many churches have cooking facilities that are use for such purposes. It is a great way to learn about the "food chain" that reaches from refrigerator and pantry out to the serving line. Some community groups like Kiwanas or Lions also put on pancake breakfasts and they may possibly accept volunteers. Within your own limited budget, try hosting light dinners or potlucks at your own residence. Entertaining and providing hospitality at home is a great way of honing your cooking skills. Look into applying for entry level positions at a caterer. They do not have all of the headaches—at least on site—that working in a restaurant has. The central focus will be on food preparation while the service staff handles event management. Just be prepared to do a lot of vegetable peeling, dish washing and loading or unloading as part of your beginning duties. Best of all is, however modest the wages may be, you will be paid for such work. If you have well developed computer skills, don't be afraid to mention them as many food service companies (such as caterers) are increasingly using software-based management tools like http://download.cnet.com/Master-Chef-2008/3000-2126_4-10628229.html. Furnishing a prospective employer with some hard copy of your recipes or event planning during an interview—even something so humble as a birthday celebration dinner—will put you well ahead of the other less experienced applicants. Finally, make sure to mention all volunteer work and software skills in your resume. As a raw beginner you may not even get in the door without first demonstrating that you have some essential skills and experience.

Funny that you should ask, or that I should see this question today. I just picked up some classes teaching communications, writing, speech, and career / college success at La Cordon Bleu. Cooking school is expensive. I think it's over $30,000 at LCB. Personally, the cost of education is way too high. I think if it were me today, I'd do everything to avoid getting an education that would strap me severely financially after graduation. When I was younger and not sure what to do, I got into a computer shop distributing computer reports. I moved into operations, then tech. support, then programming, all the time learning on the job. I think that's the best education--hands-on. Get into a restaurant that you like, take a few classes here and there at a community college or take some of those no-credit auxiliary classes and just keep working and learning. Watch cooking shows. Get on social media like Quora, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and find people in your field. Get connecting. Show interest. Ask, ask, ask, ask. And just keep plugging along. That's all I've done in building four separate careers. And I can tell you that I have several degrees, and they've taught me little to nothing. My friends in business, education, law and elsewhere all tell me the same thing over and over, they've learned 95% of what they know ON THE JOB. And there ya have it.

While I am not a professional chef, I rely on the books and online resources from America's Test Kitchen/Cook's Illustrated. I especially love the "Science of Cooking" book and "Cook's Illustrated ". Their approach helps me understand the science behind great cooking.

I’m not sure if things have changed, but I would suggest looking into an apprenticeship through an ACF-approved sponsor. This is what I did almost 10 years ago, and it was one of the smartest moves I ever made! ACF stands for American Culinary Federation. Apprentices can qualify for complete tuition reimbursement through participating sponsors, which was one of the most compelling reasons I enrolled in the program. I never paid a dime, as it was all covered by my employer while I completed the 3000-hour program.

On the job, start at the bottom and work your way up. Culinary school is not by any stretch a requirement. My first restaurant job was as a dishwasher and busboy. A year later I was prepping things and a year after that I was cooking. I left it to do other things and later in life went back to culinary school - the most valuable part of that were the contacts I made that got me into the field again, not the things we did in class.

Watch YouTube and look for sites on web, and let learn the basics first. Anything that you want to achieve in life needs learning and experience, it goes both ways. So, the more you read and seek out to people with a lot of esxperience, it will help you out a little to survive in the type of career that you want.