I suppose it's like all education. It's intended to give you the vocabulary and maybe a few essential skills. You come out ready to begin learning to cook.
It was hard to make that clear to university undergraduate students, that all we could do it basically bring them to the point where they could read and understand the manuals. Nothing we could have them do was close to the real thing, and upon going to work, it would be a long time before they were really very useful to their employer.
Question - LCB's Certificate program is 600 clock hours over 36 weeks and costs in the U.S. about $20,000. (Cheap among the crowd of cooking schools, but you also have to live, so the real cost is much higher.) Because most students will use a loan to cover the cost, is it reasonable to spend that and come out fully qualified to be, at best, a near-poverty level income line cook with a loan to pay back? Is there a difference in schools of the sort that the low end is a waste of time and money, while the high (end very expensive) end is actually worthwhile? Or is it as well to get a grunt job at a good restaurant and work up? I'm way beyond ever contemplating either, but I've wondered.
So many for-profit "colleges" stink on ice. Spend a bunch of money training for a minimum wage job with zero advancement, a lifetime of poverty. (Not to mention the suckers coming out with degrees from the pretend for-profit "universities" and finding out they don't count.) Just how many culinary school graduates are there each year, compared to even the low level cooking jobs available?
It's real hard to get reliable information, since so much is put out by the for-profit culinary schools or their Internet sock puppet websites, and one should never believe anything from anyone who have a financial interest in you believing them.
