Beauty School Bail Outs?

Something big is happening in the beauty education industry that will affect both licensed and aspiring stylist in a major way

In 2025, President Trump signed the Big Beautiful Bill which was partially responsible for the restructuring of financial aid in schools. One of the major players facing massive backlash from this bill is the cosmetology, wellness and beauty industry. Over the span of the many schools and courses to pop up on the governments radar for unsuccessful graduates beauty schools account for over 42% of the individuals who fall below the debt to earn income ratio meaning; there is a trend going around in beauty schools and it’s not good.

Several privately funded beauty schools receive Title IV funding from the U.S Department of Education that pretty much covers financial aid and tuition cost for students interested in attending a cosmetology or wellness program. Here’s the problem with that, some beauty schools are apparently inflating the cost of tuition in order to receive all of the financial aid dollars that they can per student.

This means, a school that is receiving Title IV funding from the government could easily hike up their tuition costs over $10,000 without anyone batting an eye because they are receiving Title IV funding. So the trend you begin to see is, the beauty schools that are out of pocket are generally more financially friendly and yes you’d be able to learn, take your state boards and pass without insurmountable student loan debt unlike at another private beauty school that does receive Title IV funding at that school you might be paying upwards of $20,000 or more for the same program simply because you will have access to financial aid and can pay your loans back after you graduate.

Here’s how that’s a bit predatory. A lot of times students would have actually chosen the cheaper option school; but they couldn’t because the out of pocket school isn’t supplying any source of financial aid. This puts a strain on students financially and often times leads them to applying for these massive loans to attend these expensive beauty schools that do not prepare them to enter into the field and be successful .

Now, the cheaper options aren’t always the best. Even the out of pocket beauty schools can be predatory as well, since it’s a cheaper option school a lot of times they don’t always source their products from ethical manufacturers, students have reported being given lash kits from TEMU. Cheaper, Out of pocket schools can also be dangerous in other ways; you could be possibly signing up for the bare minimum education, bare mimic products and kits with little to no education OR you could just as easily sign up for the super expensive school offering you financial aid, and a somewhat beautiful campus but once you sign up you realize the machines are broke, you rarely have a educator in the classroom and you intimately feel like you aren’t learning enough for all the money you paid to attend.

Either way, students have been getting the short end of the stick and it’s time for cosmetology, wellness and esthetics trainings to get a massive restructure.

With the new proposal presented by the Trump Administration, the U.S Department of Education will begin to implement debt to earnings thresholds which may require the schools to prove that within the next two years their graduates are in the field and making more than the average high school graduate age (21-34) in their state.

And for a lot of cosmetology programs, it’s not that they aren’t meeting one threshold. It’s that they can’t seem to meet both; but both are intended to hold schools responsible and help students from signing up for programs that offer little to no return on investment.

I’m not entirely sure if this is the direction we need for beauty education, but as a former beauty school instructor change is certainly needed and it is time to make some adjustments. The beauty industry has evolved in so many ways since it’s beginning and we are still running on the same principles as before. Show up to School and prepare to pass state boards, but that’s unfair to students and it’s simply not enough.

Beauty Schools need to offer more education on business, employment opportunities and how to leave beauty school with a plan. Sending students out the door with just enough knowledge to pass their state boards is simply unacceptable and doing a huge disservice to the industry.

I believe adding these thresholds may be the step in the right direction to protect students from predatory beauty school programs. However, this isn’t the greatest news for schools because now they are tasked with ensuring that their students are actually reporting what they  earn every year and technically with these thresholds schools are responsible for their students earning potential post graduation.. you don’t even see that for colleges. If schools can’t prove their programs to be somewhat successful and providing a return on investment they could potentially lose that Title IV funding for their program. Is that fair? That will be for the decision makers at the U.S Department of Education.

All we can do is continue to voice our concerns and communicate to our beauty schools that they have a responsibility to send out professional, well mannered, knowledgeable beauty professionals that know their craft and provide results for clients. It’s time for Beauty School owners to meet the students where they are. Lower tuition, offer more education on post graduation, entrepreneurship in the beauty space and social media ettiquete. Teaching just enough to pass state boards is not adequate anymore; it never has been.

The schools that survive this crucial change are schools who support their students and give them what they need to be successful; otherwise if the program isn’t producing economically sound students, they could be forced to close.