Best degree programs for Cooks, Restaurant, ranked by enrollment
2 college programs and 481 schools train Cooks, Restaurant. Compare graduates per year, cost and pay, $37,390 median wage, 1,409,890 U.S. jobs. Federal data.
2 college programs at 481 schools train cooks, restaurant, graduating 16,247 people a year (IPEDS completions). The largest is Culinary Arts/Chef Training. The job pays a median of $37,390 (BLS OEWS May 2025).
About cooks, restaurant
Prepare, season, and cook dishes such as soups, meats, vegetables, or desserts in restaurants. May order supplies, keep records and accounts, price items on menu, or plan menu.
Fields of study that lead to this job
Grouped at the 4-digit CIP level, the tier our program pages are built on. Numbers are graduates per year.
2 degree programs that lead to this job
Ranked by graduates per year (IPEDS completions). Graduate earnings and debt are College Scorecard figures for people who finished the program, reported at the 4-digit CIP level, so specializations within one field share a figure. That is a different measurement from the occupation-wide wages further down this page.
| # | Program | Graduates / yr | Share of pipeline | Schools | Grad earnings (1 yr) | Median debt |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Culinary Arts/Chef Trainingmain feeder CIP 12.0503 | 11,808 | 72.7% | 353 | $25,404 | $13,000 |
| 2 | Cooking and Related Culinary Arts, Generalmain feeder CIP 12.0500 | 4,439 | 27.3% | 153 | $25,404 | $13,000 |
Top 50 schools by graduates into this job
Counting every feeder program a school offers, not just its largest one.
What cooks, restaurant earn
What people already working in this job earn (BLS OEWS May 2025). Not graduate earnings.
Top-paying states
Top-paying metro areas
Job outlook
Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Projections, 2024 to 2034.
Where the jobs are, state by state
Pick a state for in-state pay, the schools there, and the programs they run.
| State | Median pay | Jobs | Concentration | Schools | Graduates / yr |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Colorado | $41,600 | 30,600 | 1.17× | 8 | 2,035 |
| California | $44,880 | 152,250 | 0.92× | 50 | 1,984 |
| Texas | $34,760 | 126,620 | 0.99× | 30 | 1,489 |
| New York | $43,680 | 71,530 | 0.81× | 21 | 1,371 |
| Florida | $37,020 | 124,040 | 1.38× | 46 | 1,053 |
| North Carolina | $35,400 | 50,150 | 1.12× | 27 | 642 |
| Illinois | $37,580 | 53,540 | 0.97× | 17 | 625 |
| Louisiana | $29,050 | 14,910 | 0.85× | 10 | 584 |
| Oklahoma | $31,720 | 17,050 | 1.10× | 13 | 418 |
| Arizona | $38,670 | 30,870 | 1.05× | 9 | 373 |
| Michigan | $36,980 | 39,100 | 0.98× | 11 | 313 |
| Virginia | $36,750 | 40,310 | 1.08× | 12 | 313 |
| Georgia | $35,940 | 46,350 | 1.05× | 17 | 306 |
| Kentucky | $34,640 | 13,510 | 0.74× | 8 | 251 |
| Ohio | $35,540 | 46,910 | 0.93× | 11 | 235 |
| South Carolina | $35,740 | 25,890 | 1.24× | 8 | 228 |
| Arkansasmoderate | $30,180 | 11,270 | 0.95× | 4 | 225 |
| Tennessee | $36,420 | 28,220 | 0.95× | 7 | 202 |
| Mississippi | $29,560 | 10,770 | 1.02× | 11 | 197 |
| Washington | $46,800 | 35,140 | 1.09× | 14 | 196 |
| Utah | $36,490 | 10,520 | 0.67× | 7 | 195 |
| Pennsylvania | $36,580 | 54,100 | 0.98× | 16 | 192 |
| Hawaii | $45,420 | 11,090 | 1.95× | 5 | 178 |
| New Jersey | $38,460 | 28,800 | 0.74× | 11 | 178 |
| Rhode Islandlimited | $36,510 | 6,950 | 1.53× | 1 | 177 |
| Wisconsin | $36,550 | 25,410 | 0.95× | 11 | 174 |
| Iowa | $35,670 | 12,270 | 0.87× | 7 | 153 |
| Alabama | $32,180 | 16,260 | 0.85× | 5 | 143 |
| Nevadalimited | $38,610 | 27,250 | 1.94× | 2 | 114 |
| Maryland | $37,820 | 17,690 | 0.71× | 5 | 104 |
| Oregon | $43,100 | 21,550 | 1.21× | 5 | 93 |
| Massachusetts | $45,600 | 29,570 | 0.90× | 7 | 92 |
| New Mexico | $35,020 | 7,810 | 0.99× | 7 | 87 |
| Missouri | $36,940 | 25,990 | 0.98× | 7 | 85 |
| Connecticutlimited | $39,480 | 14,830 | 0.96× | 2 | 79 |
| Kansasmoderate | $35,130 | 11,620 | 0.89× | 4 | 62 |
| Minnesotamoderate | $38,590 | 26,080 | 0.98× | 4 | 54 |
| Nebraskalimited | $37,030 | 4,750 | 0.51× | 1 | 42 |
| Mainemoderate | $45,290 | 5,130 | 0.88× | 4 | 41 |
| Delawarelimited | $37,840 | 5,280 | 1.20× | 1 | 29 |
| Alaskalimited | $40,140 | 2,350 | 0.80× | 2 | 24 |
| West Virginiamoderate | $29,590 | 6,450 | 1.01× | 4 | 21 |
| Indianalimited | $35,170 | 26,960 | 0.93× | 2 | 20 |
| New Hampshiremoderate | $40,200 | 7,190 | 1.16× | 3 | 14 |
| Idaholimited | $36,440 | 8,130 | 1.05× | 2 | 11 |
| Montanalimited | $38,060 | 7,580 | 1.63× | 2 | 11 |
| South Dakotalimited | $36,220 | 1,890 | 0.46× | 2 | 8 |
| North Dakotalimited | $36,470 | 4,490 | 1.15× | 1 | 6 |
| Wyominglimited | $36,830 | 2,710 | 1.06× | 1 | 1 |
Skills and tools
From O*NET, the U.S. Department of Labor's occupational database. Importance is a 1 to 5 scale.
What they do day to day
- Ensure food is stored and cooked at correct temperature by regulating temperature of ovens, broilers, grills, and roasters.
- Inspect and clean food preparation areas, such as equipment, work surfaces, and serving areas, to ensure safe and sanitary food-handling practices.
- Portion, arrange, and garnish food, and serve food to waiters or patrons.
- Ensure freshness of food and ingredients by checking for quality, keeping track of old and new items, and rotating stock.
- Season and cook food according to recipes or personal judgment and experience.
- Coordinate and supervise work of kitchen staff.
- Bake, roast, broil, and steam meats, fish, vegetables, and other foods.
- Weigh, measure, and mix ingredients according to recipes or personal judgment, using various kitchen utensils and equipment.
Skills
- Monitoring3.0
- Critical Thinking3.0
- Speaking3.0
- Active Listening2.9
- Active Learning2.8
- Reading Comprehension2.8
- Writing2.3
- Mathematics2.3
Knowledge areas
- Food Production3.4
- English Language3.1
- Customer and Personal Service2.6
- Production and Processing2.3
- Education and Training2.2
- Mathematics2.1
Abilities
- Near Vision3.5
- Manual Dexterity3.4
- Problem Sensitivity3.1
- Finger Dexterity3.0
- Arm-Hand Steadiness3.0
- Control Precision3.0
Core activities
- Handling and Moving Objects3.4
- Performing General Physical Activities3.0
- Getting Information2.9
- Monitoring Processes, Materials, or Surroundings2.8
- Judging the Qualities of Objects, Services, or People2.8
- Processing Information2.7
Tools and technology
hotmarks an O*NET hot technologyHow to get in
How to become a Cook, Restaurant
Job zone 2 of 5 · SVP Below 6.0- Typical entry education
- No formal educational credential
- Work experience needed
- Less than 5 years
- On-the-job training
- Moderate-term on-the-job training
Usually requires a high school diploma or GED, though some occupations may not.
Some occupations may need little or no previous experience; others require several months to a year of experience. For example, landscaping and groundskeeping workers might require very little training or previous experience, while agricultural equipment operators can benefit from on-the job training.
Ranges from a few days to one year of on-the-job training.
Every major mapped to this job
The official federal mapping behind the rankings above.
All 2 majors mapped to Cooks, Restaurant2 of them graduated someone in the latest IPEDS year. NCES CIP 2020 → SOC 2018 crosswalk.+
- 12.0500Cooking and Related Culinary Arts, General
- 12.0503Culinary Arts/Chef Training
Related careers
Jobs O*NET identifies as close to this one, with their own pay and outlook.
Common questions
What degree do you need to become a Cook, Restaurant?+
No formal educational credential is the typical entry-level education BLS reports for this occupation. The most common program people actually graduate from is Culinary Arts/Chef Training, which awarded 11,808 degrees in 2024-25, 72.7% of everyone graduating from a program that feeds this career.
Which college majors lead to becoming a Cook, Restaurant?+
The NCES CIP-to-SOC crosswalk maps 2 programs to this occupation. The largest are Culinary Arts and Related Services. Together they graduate about 16,247 people a year.
How much do cooks, restaurant earn?+
The median is $37,390 a year (BLS OEWS May 2025). The middle range runs from $28,700 at the 10th percentile to $47,900 at the 90th. This is pay for people already working in the occupation, not the same thing as graduate earnings one year after finishing a degree.
Is demand for cooks, restaurant growing?+
BLS projects a +14.9% change in employment between 2024 and 2034, much faster than average, with roughly 250,700 openings a year nationally once retirements and job changes are counted.
How many schools offer programs for this career?+
481 institutions reported graduates from at least one of the 2 programs that feed this occupation in IPEDS 2024-25. Rankings on this page use graduates per year, because the federal data publishes no enrollment count by program.
What other job titles do cooks, restaurant work under?+
Employers advertise this work under many names. O*NET records Cook, Line Cook, Grill Cook, Prep Cook (Preparation Cook) among the most commonly reported, all mapping to SOC 35-2014.
About the data on this page
Rankings use IPEDS completions 2024-25, degrees awarded per year. That is the closest federal measure of how many people a program puts into a career, because no federal dataset publishes enrollment by program. Wages and employment come from BLS OEWS May 2025, growth and openings from BLS Employment Projections 2024-34, and which majors lead to which jobs from the NCES CIP 2020 to SOC 2018 crosswalk. Occupation descriptions, tasks, skills and tools are O*NET 30.3 (CC BY 4.0, U.S. Department of Labor/ETA).
BLS Occupational Employment & Wage Statistics
May 2025Wages, employment counts, location quotients and metro breakdowns.
BLS Employment Projections
2024–34Projected growth, annual openings and typical entry-level education.
IPEDS Completions
2024-25 (provisional)Graduates per year by program and institution — the ranking metric.
College Scorecard, Field of Study
2020-21 cohortsMedian graduate earnings one year after completion, and median debt.
Census Post-Secondary Employment Outcomes
latest availableGraduate earnings 1/5/10 years out, where the state participates.
NCES CIP 2020 and the CIP-to-SOC 2018 crosswalk
CIP 2020 / SOC 2018Which college programs officially lead to this occupation.
O*NET Database 30.3
30.3Tasks, skills, knowledge, tools, job zone and alternate job titles.
Official source →CC BY 4.0, U.S. Department of Labor / ETA
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