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In 1980, I was a 20-year-old Navy veteran sleeping in a car and raising $700 to start a hair care company with a hairstylist named Paul Mitchell. We believed the American dream was still open to the public. Forty-six years later, that same dream is what a federal rule is about to eliminate for the next generation.
The Department of Education has proposed an earnings premium metric under the gainful employment rule that will judge vocational programs on a rigid number: whether vocational graduates, four years after completion, earn more than the typical full-time 25- to 34-year-old worker in the same state without a college degree. Programs that fail the test in two out of every three years lose access to federal student aid. According to the Department's own data, more than 92% of beauty and barbering programs nationwide would fail.
This is not a minor regulatory adjustment. It is a death sentence for thousands of cosmetology, barber, esthetician and nail salon schools across the United States. Without the help of Title IV, most students—many of them single mothers, veterans, first-generation Americans, and working-class children—simply cannot afford the training and education necessary to obtain a state license. Schools will close. The pipeline of new licensed professionals will collapse. And at the exact moment we are being told that skilled trades and human-centered careers are the future in an AI-driven economy, we are threatening to defund an industry built on human connection, creativity, and hands-on experience.
The beauty industry is a $100 billion economic engine that employs 1.3 million Americans. It is one of the few sectors where someone can obtain a marketable credential in less than a year, walk into a store or salon, and set up a business. Our professionals are mostly women who depend on flexible part-time schedules to raise their families while generating income. Many make most of their money through tips and building clientele, incomes that grow substantially after the first few years but are invisible in the landscape of the Department's early career.
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The new regulations put salons and barbers at risk of being excluded from Title IV student aid. (iStock)
By ignoring these realities (part-time work, tips, self-employment, and the female-dominated nature of the countryside), the rule systematically undervalues the true value of beauty education. He compares new licensees to full-time workers who only have a high school diploma, many of whom have already been in the workforce for a decade. The result is a false narrative that beauty programs don't deliver results, when in fact they deliver exactly what millions of Americans need: flexible, entrepreneurial, in-person careers that can't be automated.
The economic consequences will be rapid and widespread. School closures mean fewer licensed professionals are entering the workforce at a time when demand is growing. Salons, spas and barbershops will face chronic staff shortages. Rural communities and small towns, already struggling with a lack of services, will see “deserts of beauty” where basic grooming and wellness services disappear. Consumers will lose access to safe and authorized health care. Small business owners who rely on barbers and stylists will see their income drop. The ripple effects will affect product manufacturers, distributors, real estate and local tax bases.
It's not just about beauty and barbering schools. It is about taking away opportunities from the very people that the American economy claims to defend. The single mother who sees beauty as her path to independence. The veteran looking for a stable second career. The young entrepreneur who dreams of having her own salon. These are the people who built this $100 billion industry, and the ones who will lose the most if it is deprived of new talent and fair access to education.
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Congress understood this when it passed the One Big Beautiful Bill. The law deliberately limits this income framework to college students. degree graduate programs and certificates. Undergraduate certification programs such as cosmetology and barbering were intentionally excluded. The department should follow the law, not rewrite it.
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Secretary Linda McMahon has the power (and lived experience) to solve this problem. She knows what it means to build a business from scratch. It should direct the department to exclude non-degree college and licensed trade certification programs from the earnings premium test, consistent with statutory intent. This one change would protect opportunity, preserve labor reserves and safeguard a vital sector of our economy.
The comment period closes May 20. Now is the time for all of us who love this industry – school owners, professionals, salon owners, manufacturers, and the millions of Americans we serve – to speak up and protect the next generation.
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Beauty and barbering are not alternative careers. They are paths to independence, entrepreneurship, creativity and human connection. They change lives every day behind the chair.
We built this industry with our hands. We will fight for your future.
