Keith Earl has had an impressive career.

He trained at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., which many people consider the best culinary school in the United States. He was executive chef of the Igloo Club, a private club at the Mellon Arena for Penguins season ticket holders and members, as well as the former Top of the Triangle. And he was executive chef at the Allegheny Club, which he considered the pinnacle of his career.

"I was in charge of 38 people. That was my highest salary, I was making $65,000 a year, working 70 hours a week," he recalls.

While enthusiastic about his career, he says there also have been regrets. At age 52, his bones ache from the long hours of standing. And he's missed out on spending time with his family and seeing his kids grow up. "I've never seen my kids play a Little League game," he says.

Mr. Earl sounds like any parent who made personal sacrifices to achieve a high-powered career. The difference is, a successful career as a chef most often does not carry the same financial rewards as other prominent fields, such as business or law.

When people think of successful chefs, they think of celebrities, but as Mr. Earl pointed out, "Bobby Flay and Emeril, that's not the norm."

Many of the young people now considering careers as food professionals have grown up with the Food Network, which began in 1993 and glamorized the profession. They have very different perceptions of the life of a cook than previous generations.

In a recent survey conducted by The International Culinary Schools at The Art Institutes of its students, "Nearly all [96 percent of] students agree that the media play a role in their culinary lives." In other words, at least some of the time these students look to food magazines and television for entertainment, inspiration and education.

While the Food Network and other forces that have dramatically increased interest in food have been a boon to the restaurant world, they may also have created a generation of young cooks who don't know what they're getting into.

Many aspiring chefs start with a culinary school degree, which has multiple benefits. But there are also some significant downsides, including a hefty price tag surprising to many.

As of 2007, an associate's degree in Culinary Arts from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh will cost a student $49,268.

An associate's degree in Culinary Arts from the Pennsylvania Culinary Institute currently costs $41,870. These costs are very much in line with culinary schools elsewhere in the United States.

The 2007-08 costs for an associate's degree from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., according to its Web site, were approximately $50,000.

Culinary schools are very expensive to run. Practical (kitchen) classes must have small chef-to-student ratios, and equipment and insurance costs are exceptionally high. After all, at what other school do students commonly cut or burn themselves and consume much of the class materials at the end of class?

The schools also offer career placement services. They have career fairs, help place students in required externship programs that often turn into permanent jobs and help students make alumni contacts. At the Pennsylvania Culinary Institute, as at many other schools, students can return to the school for job help for the rest of their career.

Anecdotal evidence also suggests that students with culinary school degrees are more likely to move up the ladder more quickly. But students' conceptions of how high that ladder climbs may be different from reality.

According to U.S. Department of Labor statistics, the mean chef or head cook wage in Pennsylvania in 2006 was $34,840. The national average was $37,880. A salary of only $60,730 puts a chef in the 90th percentile, nationally. The mean wage of a cook in a Pennsylvania full-service restaurant was $21,190.

In May 2007, Kim Severson of The New York Times wrote about student loan debt and how it altered the career choices of culinary school graduates. She discovered that culinary students are particularly vulnerable to defaulting on student loans.

The current state of the economy suggests that their vulnerability may only increase as students and parents struggle to make increasing loan payments.

Culinary school graduates also can have a particularly difficult time if they later decide not to pursue a career in the hospitality industry. They can find themselves deeply in debt and with few options, given the specialized nature of the degree.

There are a number of jobs in the culinary field that offer a more balanced work schedule, such as working at retirement homes, dining services at universities and state institutions. These jobs are definitely less sexy than working at a fine-dining restaurant in Manhattan or a resort in Florida. But some chefs and cooks are very happy to trade some of their creativity for regular hours and a more relaxed atmosphere.

So, if you can't be Mario Batali, can you be happy as a chef?

Of course. The hospitality industry represents a host of dramatically different careers that should rarely be compared. Some chefs are artists. Even if they never make huge sums of money and they work all the time, they're still happy, and they could never be happy doing anything else.

Other people need different kinds of incentives to find satisfaction in their work. Today, Mr. Earl is working for a small, family-run catering company. He's not making anywhere near his peak salary, but he'll be able to go fishing a few times this summer.

Working in the hospitality industry can be a rewarding and exciting career, but people should enter it with their eyes open, fully aware of what they hope to get out of it and the sacrifices they will have to make.