Kansas City, MO (population: 454,520) has four catering schools within a 100-mile radius of its city center. Kaw Area Technical School, the highest ranked school in this group with a catering program, has a total student population of 676. It is the 781st highest ranked school in the USA and the 8th highest in the state of Kansas (#1 is Southwestern College).
Catering students from Kansas City schools who go on to become caterers, professional caterers, food service managers, food service directors, etc. have a good chance at finding employment. For example, there are 11,218,260 people working as food preparation and serving related employees alone in the US, and their average annual salary is $20,880. Also, Meeting and convention planners make on average $48,060 per year and there are about 51,530 of them employed in the US today. In fact, in the Kansas City-KS area alone, there are 410 employed meeting and convention planners earning an average salary of $46,580. Food preparation and serving related employees in this area earn $20,510/yr and there are 84,650 employed.
Kansas City lies in Jackson county, which is one of the 39 counties in Missouri. Overall, the Kansas City-KS area has 988,100 total employed workers according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, with a 0.8% unemployment rate, $20.79/hr average worker wage, and a $43,240 average annual salary. Thus, about 85.672 out of every 1000 jobs in Kansas City are held by food preparation and serving related employees, and 0.419/1000 are held by meeting and convention planners.
Of the 4 catering schools with a 100-mile radius of Kansas City, only 1 has a student population over 10k. After taking into account tuition, living expenses, and financial aid, Kaw Area Technical School comes out as the most expensive ($11,600/yr) for catering students, with Nevada Regional Technical Center as the lowest, reported at only $8,484/yr.
| Name | State | Population | # of Schools | Avg School Rank | Total Programs | Distance from Kansas City |
| North Kansas City | MO | - | 1 | 17.668 | 0 | 1.0 miles |
| Parkville | MO | - | 1 | 24.2346 | 91 | 8.8 miles |
| Independence | MO | 110,030 | 5 | 14.6026 | 91 | 10.9 miles |
| Blue Springs | MO | 57,147 | 1 | 22.3674 | 5 | 16.6 miles |
| Lees Summit | MO | - | 1 | 10.817 | 19 | 16.7 miles |
| Lenexa | KS | 49,185 | 2 | 9.677 | 29 | 17.0 miles |
| Olathe | KS | 125,326 | 3 | 26.6113 | 75 | 21.2 miles |
| Lawrence | KS | 92,060 | 4 | 30.1334 | 36 | 39.7 miles |
| Atchison | KS | - | 2 | 13.325 | 58 | 43.3 miles |
| Saint Joseph | MO | 76,371 | 4 | 37.3685 | 160 | 46.6 miles |
| Ottawa | KS | - | 1 | 45.4994 | 36 | 52.1 miles |
| Topeka | KS | 124,629 | 5 | 27.0429 | 163 | 61.5 miles |
| Sedalia | MO | - | 2 | 20.9991 | 46 | 76.7 miles |
| Fort Scott | KS | - | 1 | 19.5238 | 38 | 89.0 miles |
| Iola | KS | - | 1 | 14.0674 | 83 | 94.6 miles |