Introduction

Mia remembered touring one of the Paul Mitchell campuses, a widely known U.S. cosmetology school franchise, where she would eventually enroll. She was struck by the slick, contemporary facilities, resplendent with bulky mirrors and mammoth portraits of models. Representatives from the school pitched her a vision familiar to many cosmetology prospects: After finishing their flexible program taught by industry experts, Mia would have creative freedom, financial security, and a steady demand for her services.¹

Promises like these appeal to many cosmetology students, who often come from low-income and historically marginalized populations. Mia said she thought that cosmetology chains, and Paul Mitchell particularly, would offer the type of well put together education she needed.

“The idea is that the education is so high-end, compared to other cosmetology schools,” Mia told New America.

But like a trick of the mirror, cosmetology schools’ promises often reflect something better than reality.

In interviews and focus groups that New America convened, current and former cosmetology students, who were or had trained to become hair stylists and colorists, complained their schools were understaffed and that instructors were so crushingly busy that they had to rely on each other to learn basic skills.²

This is just one strand of the inadequate, out-of-date training that cosmetology schools often peddle, especially at prominent chains. These problems appear to be systemic throughout the $2.2 billion for-profit cosmetology and beauty school industry in the United States, regardless of the promises that recruiters make to lure students to their campuses.

For example, despite assurances of financial security for students down the road, the training these schools provide often leads to jobs that pay less than what someone with only a high school diploma would earn. In 2023, the U.S. Department of Education revised consumer protection regulations called gainful employment—requiring career college programs to prove their graduates could secure jobs with salaries sufficient to pay off student loans and outpace the earnings of high school graduates in their state. During this process, it was revealed that more than 40 percent of the programs projected to fail these benchmarks are in cosmetology and related personal grooming services, by far the largest share, according to the Education Department.³ The next highest group, allied health and medical assisting programs, accounted for just 12 percent of failures.

And while industry officials claim their schools are well-run and dedicated to students’ success, Education Department data show otherwise. Cosmetology schools are heavily represented on the department’s list of schools under heightened cash monitoring, a sanction imposed for issues such as financial mismanagement or failure to meet accreditor standards, which could include hiring unqualified faculty or administrators or offering poorly structured programs.⁴ Under heightened cash monitoring, schools are subject to increased oversight and, in the most severe cases, must front the costs of student financial aid before being reimbursed, a departure from the usual practice of being able to draw directly from federal funds. As of December, at least 83 U.S. cosmetology schools were on heightened cash monitoring,⁵ representing about 20 percent of all U.S. institutions the Education Department flagged, according to New America’s analysis.

In the worst cases, cosmetology schools have come under heat—and been the subject of lawsuits—for defrauding students. In Iowa, the state attorney general in 2014 sued La’ James International College, a multi-campus beauty school (and one of the institutions currently on heightened cash monitoring). The lawsuit accused the school of deceiving students into enrolling.⁶

“What many students experience is a school with extraordinary turnover of instructors, resulting in ‘instructorless’ classrooms and inconsistent instruction, lack of access to practice their skills, and ultimately, an institution that treats them more like free labor than students,” the attorney general’s lawsuit alleged.⁷ La’ James settled the case in 2016, forgiving $2.1 million of student debt and paying the state $550,000.⁸ La’ James remains in operation.

That same year, the federal Education Department punished another cosmetology chain, the Marinello Schools of Beauty, after discovering the school engaged in a scheme to maximize its federal student aid revenue.⁹ Marinello helped students who were ineligible for aid obtain it by directing them to unaccredited private high schools where they were given fake diplomas, they then used these fraudulent diplomas to apply for financial aid. Marinello shut down after the Education Department took action.

Evidence suggests that the industry as a whole has focused on maximizing the amount of financial aid that its schools receive, in part by working to extend students’ time enrolled far longer than is needed. To qualify for a cosmetology license, students must finish extensive in-person training, which schools insist is crucial for mastering health and sanitation practices. But while protecting client safety is essential, cosmetology licensure demands are more compared to other professions.

When states attempt to ease licensure hours, cosmetology schools jump in to protect their interests. Such has been the case in states like Texas, Iowa, California, Florida, Oklahoma, and Virginia, all which tried to ease the path to licensure.¹⁰ A report published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that strong lobbying by professional associations has largely succeeded in derailing state efforts.¹¹

Beauty school representatives also sit on many state licensure boards and other bodies that regulate cosmetology. Separately, some schools have tried to quash efforts by community colleges in various states to develop shorter, more affordable beauty school programs.

In short, cosmetology schools often don’t fulfill the promise of higher education: ensuring students earn a quality credential, which leads to sufficient employment and wages and potentially boosts them up the social mobility ladder.

Institutions that fail to deliver on this promise should face the chop of federal financial aid and shut down, and they could, under federal regulations like gainful employment. However, the American Association of Cosmetology Schools sued over the regulation in 2023, arguing it would jeopardize the “very existence” of many of its members.¹² The American Association of Cosmetology Schools (AACS) had filed a similar lawsuit against an earlier version of the rule that the Obama administration proposed. Then, when the Trump administration took power, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos “seized on AACS’s lawsuit, using it as a partial justification to continue the process of wiping out Obama’s gainful employment regulations,” BuzzFeed News reported at the time.¹³

Policymakers can avoid repeating history. For too long, the cosmetology industry had dodged accountability in the federal financial aid system. Republicans sitting atop the federal government can fulfill their promise to be stewards of public money by ensuring taxpayer dollars don’t flow to beauty schools that produce abysmal results. They have already expressed interest in promoting accountability for all college programs.¹⁴

Cosmetology students, many of whom are women, Latino, or Black, deserve better.¹⁵

They deserve an educational framework that aligns with their aspirations and equips them for meaningful, well-paying work. To brush away predatory practices, policymakers must enact reforms that put student welfare and taxpayers’ interests at the forefront, curb schools’ outsized influence, and demand accountability. Only then can cosmetology truly be a force for social mobility and creative empowerment, not a trap that drains students’ potential.