From our foundation as a business school in 1914 by Gertrude I. Johnson and Mary T. Wales, Johnson & Wales University (JWU) is renowned as a world-class leader in culinary and hospitality education. JWU’s College of Hospitality & Business brings together the legacy strengths of both disciplines to offer students an integrated educational experience that prepares them to advance into leadership and management positions in long-term sustainable careers.
Today, JWU Online offers 100% fully online undergraduate and graduate culinary management degrees and hospitality degrees, including a Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) degree in Hospitality Leadership.
Hospitality And Culinary Career Outlook
According to Hotel News Resource (2026), “The culinary and hospitality sectors are undergoing a period of transformation, characterized by rising wages and expanding job opportunities.”
2026 data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the leisure and hospitality industry employs almost 17 million people, which includes the accommodation and food services sectors. Employment of chefs and head cooks and food service managers is expected to grow faster than average, while employment of lodging managers is expected to grow as fast as average, reflecting a stable hotel management sector.
What Is An Education’s Value For Hospitality And Culinary Careers?
Although many entry-level positions in the culinary and hospitality industries (housekeeping, server, dishwasher) can be gained without a college degree and can build industry experience, advancing into higher paying supervisory, general management and revenue management positions may require a degree. BLS qualifies that while lodging managers can enter with a minimum of a high school diploma, “full-service facilities may prefer to hire candidates who have a bachelor’s degree in hospitality or hotel management.”
A 2024 US News article stresses that culinary education can lead to career growth and opportunities beyond restaurants, “such as working in hotels, country clubs and sports stadiums; developing recipes for cookbooks or magazines; and being a culinary instructor or a private chef.” Jason Evans, Dean of JWU’s College of Food Innovation and Technology offers that, “food education really can launch careers in social science, in science, in management, in entrepreneurship.”
JWU Online students range from new high school graduates to industry professionals with 20 and 30 years of food service or hospitality experience. Read on to learn how education has helped JWU Online students and alumni shape career paths matched to their interests and goals.
Education Helps Pivot From ‘Just A Job’ To A Career
Yee Tran ’24, MBA – Hospitality didn’t always believe that education was necessary for a good life. Immigrating as a teenager from Vietnam to the United States, Tran was a first-generation student. No one in his immediate family modeled how education provides a pathway to career success.
Working as a cook at a nursing home, his manager discouraged his interest in earning a bachelor’s degree, telling Tran that he ‘just needed experience to become a manager or a chef.’ Initially that made sense to Tran who thought, “If I have a college education but don’t know how to cook, how can I become a chef?”
Eventually recognizing it was in his manager’s interest to keep him in the same position, Tran says “He was not telling me the whole truth. Being a chef is more than just being able to cook. Professional chefs need to know about budgeting and have management skills. A chef has to know how to hire people and how to lead the team.”
Earning a bachelor’s degree helped Tran get hired at high-end hotels. Aspiring to advance into management, Tran enrolled in JWU Online’s MBA – Hospitality program. Early in the MBA program Tran accepted a branch coordinator position at a manufacturing company “By applying skills learned in the MBA program — procurement and vendor management, accounting and financial management, human resources, supply management and office administration — I learned to manage a business and become a training manager.”
While still in the program, Tran became a manager at NEXUS Seattle. “The business knowledge I gained in the MBA program — and the confidence education gave me — helped me get hired in a position managing building services. The MBA program taught us to go beyond being managers to become leaders. Every day I feel happy because I can use my critical thinking and problem-solving skills to excel in my work.”
Hospitality And Food Safety Degrees Elevate Careers
Stephen Taylor ’27, A.S. – Hospitality Management has twenty years of hands-on culinary experience and was enjoying his role as head chef for the prestigious Wissahickon Clubhouse on the Flourtown campus of the Philadelphia Cricket Club.
Taylor shares, “I’m always going to love the kitchen, but now that I’m in my early forties, I want to advance in my career and increase my earnings. My goal is to move up to clubhouse manager and general manager. To achieve these goals, it was a no-brainer — I needed a college education.
“The Hospitality Management program bridges the gap between what I know with what I don’t know. The courses have opened my eyes to how much more there is to learn in hospitality — and that helps me do my job better.” In May 2026, Taylor accepted a new role as Assistant General Manager at Whitford Country Club in Exton, PA, where he will pivot from culinary into broader-scale club operations.
Taylor shares, “Without a doubt, continuing my education with JWU played a role in the club’s decision to hire me. Earning the A.S. – Hospitality Management degree is helping me take that next step toward leadership roles in private clubs and general management.”
Taylor and his wife, Emily Adams ’22, B.S. Hospitality, met at the Cricket Club while she was the dining room manager. After leaving the Cricket Club, Adams first managed a boutique hotel and eventually accepted a position at a golf club.
Seeking a more formalized education that would strengthen her business knowledge, leadership capabilities, and long-term career growth, Adams enrolled in the Hospitality Management program at JWU Online in 2018. “The program gave me a deeper understanding of hospitality operations, finance, organizational strategy, and leadership, while also helping me develop the ability to solve complex problems quickly in hospitality environments. Beyond the technical and operational knowledge, the program reinforced a people-centric mindset that has stayed with me throughout my career.”
Adams has had continued professional success, first becoming the golf club’s food and beverage director, then more recently the club’s Human Resources Manager. “Having a hospitality degree absolutely helped me get hired and advance in my career. In hospitality, credibility often comes from understanding operations firsthand. It showed employers that I had both the technical knowledge and the operational knowledge needed to grow within the industry.”
Michael Yates ’23, ’26, MBA – Event Leadership started his career as a dishwasher at a mom-and-pop restaurant in North Alabama. He shares, “Becoming an executive chef has been a big mountain to climb. Completing the BS – Culinary Arts and Food Service Management degree in 2023 at JWU Online helped me get hired in an industry I love.”
Yates credits mentorship from Professor Matthew Samel in JWU’s Department of Food and Beverage Management as having opened doors by introducing him to the Club Management Association of America (CMAA), which led to getting hired as an Executive Chef at a Yacht Club.
Practicing and perfecting what he had learned at JWU Online in finance and accounting classes to manage budgets, Yates gained experience at different restaurants and is currently the Executive Chef at the Okefenokee Country Club in Florida.
Yates shares, “I recognized that longevity in a job helps you get hired, but so does education. Recruiters would ask me, ‘What are you doing to learn, to keep growing, and to instill that same ethic into the teams you oversee?
“I returned to JWU Online to earn the MBA – Event Leadership degree because of the quality of education I received in the bachelor’s program, the professionalism of the advisors and the passion the professors have for teaching. Earning the MBA degree is giving me confidence to move forward in a sustainable career while keeping my passion for culinary arts alive.
“Now when recruiters ask me what I’m doing for my future, earning the MBA degree demonstrates that I am serious about continuing to learn and dedicated to managing events and mentoring teams.”
Joseph Presler ’03, ’27, M.S. – Food Safety is a Food Safety Quality Assurance Director with over 30 years of experience in the food industry. A Johnson & Wales University alum, Presler earned an A.S. in Culinary Arts and Chef Training in 2001 and a B.S. in Food Service Management in 2003 from JWU’s Charleston campus.
“While I was a student at JWU Charleston, my dream was to have a career with Sysco. One day, after earning my bachelor’s degree and accruing some work experience, Sysco called me and said, ‘Come join us.’”
With the goal to advance into executive positions, Presler returned to JWU to earn his M.S. Food Safety degree with JWU Online. The online Food Safety master’s degree is designed to give Presler a fresh perspective about the regulatory, retail and food processing operations integral to his role at Sysco. He is also gaining new skills in research and data analytics, which are critical today for making decisions about safety operations and procedures.
Presler comments, “Today I’m gaining a better understanding about what I currently do and expanding my knowledge at a higher level. I’m able to immediately apply what I am learning to my role in food safety quality assurance and share my knowledge with others in my work community.”
“JWU shaped my professionalism during my undergraduate years. If I hadn’t earned my bachelor’s degree at JWU, I likely wouldn’t be in the role I’m in today.”
Building The Best Business Plans For Entrepreneurial Success
Chef Daniel Thomas ’25, B.S. – Food & Beverage Entrepreneurship is a celebrity chef in the Washington, D.C. area. Thomas’ adopted father taught him to cook and inspired him to serve all people in achieving a healthier lifestyle.
A private chef and owner of DWT Culinary Associates, LLC, Thomas enrolled at JWU Online to implement his entrepreneurial plans involving a TV show, cookbooks, nutritional products and the construction of a manufacturing plant.
Thomas explains, “As an entrepreneur, the goals I want to accomplish require investors. Without a solid business plan, there’s little benefit in having contact with the most powerful — and richest — appetites in the world, because they care less about my celebrity than in knowing what their return on investment will be.
“What I love most about the Food & Beverage Entrepreneurship program is that you leave with a business plan. Individual professors in different business classes teach various ways to craft the plan, so that as you graduate, you have multiple versions of your marketing and business plans. My professors have confirmed that my plans are on the right track, so I am immediately putting to use what I’ve learned in the program.
“You also build professional relationships with your professors at JWU Online, who are truly invested in the outcomes of their students and want to help them succeed — often they are willing to help students after they graduate. We pay our tuition to learn from the faculty while in school, so having continued help from professors is the icing on the cake.”
Direka Gordon ’26, B.S. – Hospitality Management, a private chef and specialty cake maker, grew up cooking in New Orleans, which she credits as having given her “roots that make me thrive.”
As a military spouse, Gordon moves every three years when her husband is reassigned. Living in multiple states and over 20 countries has shaped her culinary specialty to become ‘cultural cuisine.’
“I didn’t follow the traditional route of working under someone in a restaurant to become a chef. Knowing I would leave, employers weren’t willing to move me up in the ranks. As an entrepreneur, I can build a business that travels with me when I move.”
Recognizing that to successfully promote her culinary business, she needed to elevate her financial acumen, develop a solid business plan and increase her confidence as an entrepreneur, Gordon embraced the opportunity to pursue a bachelor’s degree at JWU Online.
Through her degree program. Gordon is solidifying her business concept Hummingbird Roots and Recipes. Gordon wrote multiple business plans during the program, explaining, “Through the guidance of my professors in each course, I reshaped and restructured my idea of Hummingbird.”
Gordon wrote her fifth business plan after participating in The Launch Pad, JWU’s coaching and mentoring organization for aspiring entrepreneurs, led by Jeff Binczyk, ’23 DBA. “Dr. Jeff had been my professor, so we tailored the plan I wrote in his class to become my presentation for Sharkfest 2026, JWU’s annual pitch competition. He took the time to bring out the best in me by reading draft after draft and providing feedback on each version of my video.”
As one of three finalists at Sharkfest, Gordon was awarded a grant, which she says will go towards purchasing a bread making machine to fill orders for a new contract she secured.
“JWU Online has given me the tools and confidence to turn my lived experiences, cultural roots, and passion for food into a purpose-driven business. Credentials make people see you in a different light and believe in your craft. Most importantly, education helped me believe in myself.”
Experiential Education Improves Career Readiness
Tyler Power ’26, B.S. – Hospitality Management, initially enrolled as an on-ground student in Providence, then transferred to JWU Online. Power explains, “Studying online allowed me to work full-time while in school, which maximized my income while minimizing my expenses.”
While working at the front desk and as a night auditor at a Marriott Hotel in Providence, Power found he liked working with numbers. A course in revenue management, taught by JWU professor Rex Warren, inspired his interest in hotel finance and changed the trajectory of his career goals. Power applied to and was hired in an accounting position at the Marriott Quincy Hotel.
Power arranged to complete a hospitality internship at the same hotel where he was working. “The option to complete an internship at the hotel and earn credits equal to a course in the program was a big plus — I was able to explore different aspects of hospitality while gaining real-life experience.”
During his internship, Power cross-trained as a back up to another employee in a Group Rooms and Inventory Coordinator position. When that employee gave notice, Power was promoted into that position.
“I’m on the right path to one day become a Revenue Director in the hospitality industry.”
90-Credit Career-Focused Degree In Hospitality
For those looking to achieve their bachelor’s degree faster, JWU has launched a 90-credit, career-focused Hospitality Management bachelor’s degree, which can be completed in three years. Students enrolled in this program will still receive the same quality education and hands-on experiences JWU is known for.
“When, after 30+ years in hospitality, I decided to return to academics, the reputation of the school and the 90-credit program really drew me in,” states George Stinson ’28, B.S. Hospitality Management. “I’d already completed undergraduate credits and liked the idea of finishing in the shorter time frame, so it’s a great fit. From help with collecting transcripts – even from my high school in Japan – to the outreach from academics, financial aid, and the Work Integrated Learning advisors, I’ve felt attended to every step of the way.”
Visit the three-year/90-91 credit page to learn more.
Hospitality And Culinary Degrees
JWU Online offers 100% online associate, bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Hospitality Management and a Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) – Hospitality Leadership degree.
If you’re looking for a culinary-focused degree, JWU Online has bachelor’s degrees in Baking & Pastry Arts and Food Service Management, Culinary Arts & Food Service Management and Food & Beverage Entrepreneurship and a master’s degree in Food Safety, all offered 100% online.
Ready to start or advance your culinary or hospitality management career? Complete the Request Info form, call 855-JWU-1881, or email [email protected].