When students in Maria Iacovitti’s class are told they have a final exam, instead of grabbing a pen and paper, they’re going for butter and sugar. Wearing white aprons and wielding spatulas, these candies and confections students are hoping to whip up an A.

“They get graded on tempering — this kind of chocolate has to be tempered and it creates a nice snap and a glossy shine,” Iacovitti said.

The class is offered as part of Niagara County Community College’s six new associate degree and certificate programs this year, covering a range a food-related studies: Culinary arts, pastry arts, restaurant management, tourism events planning and wine and beverage management.

The shift is part of an ever-expanding move by colleges to offer programs beyond the classic academic programs. In 1996, there were 269 career cooking schools in the U.S., according to ShawGuides’ “Guide to Cooking Schools.” That number has jumped to 556.

The trend is especially growing fast in community colleges, said Mark Mistriner, trained chef and head of NCCC’s new programs.

“The trend for culinary education is that students are steering away from the higher-end private schools. They’re now being challenged by community colleges who are making a huge investment in culinary programs,” Mistriner said. “Instead of a student paying $35,000 a year, you’re looking at a maximum of $10,000. They’re learning with just as qualified faculty and they’re all graduating with associate degrees.”

NCCC, in particular, is making a major investment in its culinary-related programs. The college is pouring $15 million into the development of Culinary Institute Niagara Falls, a new three-story building planned to stand behind the Crowne Plaza Hotel downtown, where students will operate a full-service restaurant.

For now, students are working in labs at NCCC’s Sanborn campus before the new institute opens. It’s tentatively planned for 2009 and the timing is right. Mistriner said the college’s enrollment in food-related courses is up by almost 50 percent over last year and the programs are near maximum capacity.

“The national average is about 63 percent of a food budget is spent outside the house — that’s going out to dinner and getting prepared foods,” he said. “I always tell my students, say you want to move to wherever, in this field you can get a job within two to three days after you land somewhere.”

According to the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, “job openings for chefs, cooks, and food preparation workers are expected to be plentiful through 2016,” with related fields growing as fast as average.

And in a tourism hub like the Niagara region, the potential for jobs is even better, with a student placement-rate between 95 and 100 percent, Mistriner added.

Christian Willmott, a first-semester culinary arts student from Buffalo, hopes to open his own restaurant someday and plans to stick around Niagara after graduating. He already graduated from Canisius College with a degree in pre-law, but realized cooking is what he loves.

“It was a little difficult to push aside a law career for something like this where you’re not necessarily guaranteed to make the same amount of money you could as a lawyer, but I’ve worked in restaurants for years now and it’s just something I really enjoy doing,” he said. “I’m not really a 9-to-5 person — I don’t mind working late and I like the fast-paced environment that goes on in a restaurant.”

It’s a similar story for Scott Hardin of Tonawanda. He earned a psychology degree 10 years ago and decided to go back to school for culinary and pastry arts. He now serves as an executive chef at a golf club and though it was quite a change from what he had been doing, he’s glad he did it: “I said to myself, ‘Well, I like to cook and I like pleasing people — why not?’ ”