2 Portlanders file class-action suit against Western Culinary Institute. (Oregonian)

According to the complaint, the school failed to warn students that their tuition would exceed their ability, upon graduation, to pay off their federal loans. It alleges the school also misrepresented its job-placement rate and failed to disclose that students would “not obtain material benefit from the course of study.”

“A lot of these people have incurred tremendous debt,” said David Sugerman, the Portland attorney representing the students. “When they get out, they often qualify for jobs that pay very little relative to the debt they incur.”

I’ve always said that the ranks of culinary schools at the turn of the century swelled when the congener that is marijuana was mixed with the Food Network. Add to the mix Top Chef, proliferative food blogs, and America’s increasingly distractive tendencies towards hero worship and easy credit, and we now have an epidemic.