What's the best degree you can get in pastry and baking?

Community college or art institute for Pastry Arts degree?

• Okay i am currently 24, I am looking to get into Pastry. Which would you guys choose, a local community college to get The Associate of Applied Science degree in Pastry Arts. Or my state has a '' Art institute'' and offers an associates in the field. Now at the community you can receive a diploma in pastry, but i'm not sure how much that will even hold weight. anyone who is in the field can you give me some feed back? Ill greatly appreciate it. I've loved cooking/baking for the longest time. So trying to get some kind of structure set for my life here with something that's worth while.

• Answer:

  If its one of the Art Institutes run by EDMC (all of them that use the AI logo), avoid them like a plague. They're not an art school employers take seriously. They're open enrollment, they take ANYONE. They just want the financial aid from the government that you are entitled to. The government is now suing them for 11 Billion Dollars which could wipe them off the map easily. If you ask me, they're an elaborate corporate scam to funnel as many Government Pell grants and guaranteed loans out of students as they can and leave the students with the bill. They're like McDonald's of Art "Colleges". They're a chain that is popping up everywhere. They buy out dying schools, rename them, keep the accreditation.They create programs designed for impulse buyers and quick hits aka uninformed students. They may seem like they would be good, but it is all smoke and mirrors. Pretty building with pretty computers. Meanwhile, it will just ruin your life. The market demand they say they're meeting is not the demand of the Job market, its the demand of the students. Students that graduated AI are struggling to get jobs and have over more than $50,000+ or $90,000+ in debt depending on what degree they went for. Degrees that are worthless in the job market. Basically, AI is a degree mill, a total debt factory. They use bloated success stats and circle logic to back them up. They count students working at Toys R Us as in the field. Avoid them if you want to actually have a decent future. If you really want to pursue your passion, go to a community college, study fine art, and then transfer into a state school. It will be cheaper and the money you save you can buy your own equipment and STILL have money left over for a better future. Their job leads are bogus, they go to Monster, Craigslist, and career builder just like everyone else. Their top employer is HOME DEPOT (Check their own website) and I guarantee none of those are art jobs. Don't make the same mistake my friends and I did. We'll be paying for it for the rest of our lives. If you go with AI you'll be folding clothes at Target or hawking video games at Toys R Us for $8.25 an hour and struggling to pay $90,000+ with bill collectors haunting your every waking moment for the REST OF YOUR LIFE with no way to stop them because there is no bankruptcy protection on Student loans. Please please please make sure you check out these news articles below. Many are accounts from students, staff, and teachers of AI. Feel free to check YELP ("Filtered results" as well.) What you do with this information is your choice, I just want to make sure you know everything before listening to one of their recruiters sales pitch. Remember, they're paid sales people. Not your friend. College may be expensive but what these guys are pulling is straight out highway robbery. Below is a few news articles about different AI's around the country. They're all pulling the same thing. Its EDMC's business model. Decide for yourself.