Au revoir, Le Cordon Bleu.
Today it was announced that the famous cooking school, which first opened in Paris in 1895 and taught students around the world—including Julia Child—how to properly poach an egg, is closing all 16 of its U.S. locations. The Pasadena campus, along with schools in Atlanta, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Sacramento and a slew of other cities, will stop enrolling new students after January 4. Overseas schools will remain open.
The move comes after several lawsuits made by former students alleging that Le Cordon Bleu misled them about future job prospects. But the nail in the coffin, according to Le Cordon Bleu's owner Career Education Corp., was Obama's new gainful employment rule, which denies federal financial aid to for-profit schools that see graduates taking out high loans while earning little after graduation. Put simply, the graduates of Le Cordon Bleu have not been able to make enough to pay back their loans, whether for lack of job prospects or only being able to land minimum wage gigs.
The 1,200 students at the Pasadena location will be able to finish their education as campuses remain open until September 2017, but it brings to light a larger question of why graduates of Le Cordon Bleu have been unable to find jobs in the kitchen for a livable wage. This week, Playboy interviewed Andy Ricker, who recently brought Pok Pok to LA. "We all want to be able to attract professional cooks, and there’s a huge shortage of them right now. In order to do that, you have to pay really well," he said. If recent graduates can't find work, and more seasoned chefs are too expensive to hire, it begs the question: Who's going to be in the kitchen?