Student Parents in Cosmetology Programs Matter

Cosmetology is a field dominated by women and people of color. Approximately ninety percent of cosmetology program graduates are women, including large shares of Black and Latino/a students. These same students also represent a large share of the student parent population. Understanding the intersection of being a cosmetology student and being a parent is important. 

Parenting cosmetology students often work part-time schedules, juggle school, and handle caregiving responsibilities. Balancing all of these responsibilities is not easy. Approximately one in five postsecondary students are student parents, and for those earning certificates in “personal and consumer services” —which includes cosmetology programs—that number jumps to one in three. Student parents within cosmetology programs are often overlooked, and with the majority of institutions not tracking their parenting student populations, they are unaware of how to adequately serve this population. 

Unfortunately, many cosmetology schools and programs often produce unfavorable economic outcomes for students, resulting in low wages and inability to repay student loans. Given that student parents already face significant challenges between caregiving and their education, institutional, state, and federal policymakers must implement policies that ensure parenting students are supported in their pursuit of economic security. 

Cosmetology Programs Can Yield Poor Outcomes For Students

The cosmetology field includes a diverse array of occupations, including hair stylists, barbers, estheticians, nail technicians, and more. This field is regulated differently across the country where each state has their own set of licensing requirements for students to obtain a cosmetology license. Additionally, cosmetology programs vary in where they are institutionally based. Some are based in community colleges, or vocational schools (including high schools), or for-profit schools, which all have different models that impact their student outcomes. 

Cosmetology students across the country are faced with a myriad of challenges due to the structure of their programs. Upon entry, some students are met with high program costs. For example, paying for tuition, cosmetology kits, and state licensing fees can often leave these students footing bills of thousands of dollars, which, if their program qualifies, they can pay for with federal financial aid like Pell Grants and student loans. According to a report by The Century Foundation, between 2019-2020, cosmetology schools received more than $1 billion in federal loans and grants. 

Despite these federal investments, cosmetology schools far too often fail to yield positive outcomes for their graduates. Cosmetologists go on to earn near-poverty level wages following the completion of their programs. That same report by The Century Foundation found that the average cosmetologist earns just $16,600 per year, three years after the completion of their program, which falls below the average earnings of those workers with only a high school diploma and no further education. Such a wage just barely puts an individual over the single-person poverty guideline, and does not provide the support necessary for single-person headed households let alone households with dependent children. 

New Gainful Employment Rules Will Improve Outcomes, But Policymakers Must Explore Alternative Pathways Beyond Federal Student Aid

Recent Gainful Employment regulations finalized by the U.S. Department of Education will now require graduates of career-oriented programs that receive federal student aid, such as cosmetology programs, to prove that typical graduates earn more than young adults with only a high school diploma, and that graduates are able to reasonably repay their loans. If programs are unable to surpass these very low benchmarks, they will lose access to federal student aid. 

Given the poor outcomes of cosmetology programs, many of them are expected to fail the Gainful Employment standard. According to data from the Education Department, nearly half of cosmetology programs have typical graduates who never make more than those with just high school diplomas. Over one in ten programs have graduates who are unable to repay their debts. These outcomes indicate that using federal student aid to fund cosmetology school is leaving many students worse off than if they had never enrolled. Gainful Employment will be an important warning to the cosmetology programs that aren’t serving students well to shape up or be threatened with loss of aid. 

There are alternative pathways to cosmetology that don’t require federal student aid that are a lower cost. Research shows, for example, that the majority of cosmetology schools currently operate without access to federal student aid—and graduates of those schools pass state licensure exams at just as high a rate, for a fraction of the price of those programs that do have access to federal student aid. In focus groups we’ve conducted with cosmetology students and graduates, several students have worked as apprentices, receiving on-the-job training while earning money, and others were trained as high school students and graduated with a license.

Federal and state policymakers should regard Gainful Employment data as a sign that something needs to change with the way in which taxpayer dollars are used to fund training for cosmetologists. Cosmetology students deserve safeguards that the training they’ve invested time and money into will pay off, particularly because so many of them need to earn enough to sustain a family.  

What Schools Can Do Now to Help Cosmetology Student Parents

In our previous work, New America shared five ways to support student parents. Some of those ways include collecting data to better support student parents, as well as pushing for both institutional and policy changes beyond financial assistance. Collecting data on student parents is key to creating cosmetology curricula that cultivate their success and completion.Without data collected, cosmetology schools are unable to know nor understand the needs of their student parents enrolled.

Cosmetology schools can also support student parents by helping them meet other needs outside of their curriculum requirements. Many student parents are low-income and eligible for federal and state assistance programs. Therefore, cosmetology schools can assist student parents by connecting them with local and state resources for basic needs like childcare, food, and housing security. 

Further, cosmetology schools can also design flexible curriculum offered during times that make it easier for student parents to balance, and pay students based on commissions for the services they render to clients, rather than leaving them unpaid for their labor. Most program curriculums are designed with a theory and floor component. During the theory component, students attend classes that cover topics they will be assessed on during their licensing exam. The floor component requires students to complete an x number of hours (i.e. 960 hours of practical instruction are required in Iowa) practicing what they learned from their classes. The hours students spend on the floor are completely unpaid, even though they work with paying clients. The result is that many cosmetology students work full time on the floor and part time jobs, a nearly impossible task for those with caregiving responsibilities who, as a result, may have to pause their education or drop out. 

Additionally, institutions must consider further flexibility and workplace safety for pregnant students. One student parent in a focus group shared with us that when she was pregnant she found it difficult to meet the hour requirements for the floor component of her program due to the smell of the chemicals being used. Another mentioned having preterm labor symptoms and asking for flexibility with her scheduled hours—her requests went unheeded. Others told us of coming back to the floor just two weeks after giving birth to fulfill their hours, even though their bodies and babies weren’t ready. 

More Research is Needed about Student Parents Enrolled in Cosmetology Programs

The student parent experience at cosmetology school has not been discussed enough, and New America is embarking on a year-long project to learn more about cosmetology programs generally, and the student parent experience within them in particular. We will be conducting focus groups with students and recent graduates of cosmetology programs, looking at available literature, talking to experts, and analyzing available data. The result will be a better understanding of how to support students who choose cosmetology as a career so that they are on the pathway to a family-sustaining wage.

If you’d like to get in touch with us about this work, please email obatuase@newamerica.org, cheche@newamerica.org, and fishmanr@newamerica.org.