Arlington, TX (population: 385,024) has six cooking schools within a 100-mile radius of its city center. Kiamichi Technology Center-Durant, the highest ranked school in this group with a cooking program, has a total student population of 72. It is the 1403rd highest ranked school in the USA and the 25th highest in the state of Oklahoma (#1 is Oklahoma City University).
Cooking students from Arlington schools who go on to become chefs, cooks, sous chefs, line cooks, etc. have a good chance at finding employment. For example, there are 94,300 people working as chefs and head cooks alone in the US, and their average annual salary is $44,240. Also, Cooks, private household make on average $27,720 per year and there are about 770 of them employed in the US today.
Arlington lies in Tarrant county, which is one of the 154 counties in Texas. Overall, the Fort Worth-Arlington Metropolitan area has 856,430 total employed workers according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, with a 1.1% unemployment rate, $19.78/hr average worker wage, and a $41,140 average annual salary.
After taking into account tuition, living expenses, and financial aid, Kiamichi Technology Center-Durant comes out as the most expensive ($/yr) for cooking students, with Le Cordon Bleu Institute of Culinary Arts-Dallas as the lowest, reported at only $40,779/yr.
| Name | State | Population | # of Schools | Avg School Rank | Total Programs | Distance from Arlington |
| Grand Prairie | TX | 167,767 | 3 | 23.6315 | 22 | 6.4 miles |
| Mansfield | TX | 51,237 | 5 | 21.6558 | 95 | 8.3 miles |
| Forth Worth | TX | - | 3 | 11.7915 | 4 | 11.4 miles |
| North Richland Hills | TX | 67,133 | 1 | 26.4697 | 12 | 12.9 miles |
| Fort Worth | TX | 751,149 | 10 | 30.6263 | 324 | 12.9 miles |
| Irving | TX | 206,798 | 5 | 26.9216 | 138 | 15.0 miles |
| Grapevine | TX | 51,993 | 0 | - | 0 | 17.0 miles |
| Keller | TX | 41,437 | 0 | - | 0 | 17.6 miles |
| Dallas | TX | 1,304,930 | 38 | 20.246 | 638 | 22.1 miles |
| Flower Mound | TX | 72,721 | 0 | - | 0 | 23.6 miles |
| Carrollton | TX | 130,013 | 4 | 29.2073 | 85 | 24.7 miles |
| Lewisville | TX | 108,843 | 0 | - | 0 | 25.7 miles |
| Mesquite | TX | 134,509 | 2 | 15.1606 | 53 | 31.3 miles |
| Garland | TX | 220,597 | 5 | 20.3828 | 26 | 32.8 miles |
| Plano | TX | 282,016 | 1 | 11.5039 | 67 | 33.3 miles |
| University | MS | - | 1 | 33.9448 | 106 | 33.4 miles |
| Denton | TX | 127,364 | 2 | 47.1819 | 284 | 36.0 miles |
| Frisco | TX | 114,533 | 0 | - | 0 | 36.3 miles |
| Rowlett | TX | 57,581 | 0 | - | 0 | 37.0 miles |
| Allen | TX | 90,456 | 0 | - | 0 | 39.5 miles |
| Corsicana | TX | - | 1 | 14.4403 | 62 | 56.4 miles |