Culinary school is expensive, and many aspiring chefs simply skip it in favor of working their way from vegetable peeler on up the food chain with experience on the job.

However, if you are set on a culinary education, financing may be a big problem.

You can send videos to every one of the TV reality shows with your recipes and shtick and hope you get picked – and win a big prize.

Or, you can enter every contest you see advertised and become a spokesperson for a product.

Tonnino Tuna is offering just such an opportunity –- and, since school is about to start again, it’s a good time to think about their contest.

The Tonnino Tuna Chef Challenge involved creating an original tuna recipe using the company’s excellent product that is packed in jars and uploading a video of you preparing it. The prize? $5,000 for your culinary education and a one-year supply of Tonnino tuna. The rest of us-non-chefs get to “like” our favorite tuna recipe. A panel from Tonnino will judge the best of these videos. The winner becomes the Chef Spokesperson for Tonnino – which means that they receive an all-expense paid trip to New York City to participate in Tonnino’s media campaign.

If Tonnino had to pay a celebrity chef to endorse its tuna and participate in a media campaign complete with healthy recipes – it would probably carry a price tag in excess of $5,000 and a one-year supply of tuna.

Who’s getting the better deal – Tonnino or the winner?