The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, President Donald Trump’s signature legislation, contains a provision to stop universities from being able to receive federal loans for degrees that don’t pay off, sparing students and taxpayers alike from having to foot the bill for useless majors — part of why the act is also known as the Working Families Tax Cuts.
Unfortunately, the Department of Education’s implementation, as it stands, could hurt the very working families it’s intended to help by accidentally going after cosmetologists rather than laser-focusing on colleges with bloated budgets that charge $400,000 for grievance studies degrees.
Loans from cosmetology schools only make up about 0.5% of the government student loan portfolio, with the average cosmetology student taking out between $10,000 and $14,000 in student debt. That’s about half the amount in loans ($27,000) that an average undergraduate student takes out.
And with nearly 55% of liberal arts majors being underemployed after graduation — that is, working in jobs where a high school diploma would have been enough — the payoff for most of these graduates is simply not worth it. Under Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, undergraduate and graduate majors that have a lower average salary than that of a high school graduate are ineligible for federal funds — in other words, if you can expect to make $7.25 an hour working after earning your degree at a retail job that you also could have gotten after high school, the taxpayer isn’t going to pay for your underwater basketweaving degree.
But Trump’s signature law applies only to undergraduate and graduate programs, not trade-school “certificate” programs such as cosmetology. And for good reason: certificate programs are already heavily regulated, including by their industry, and they cost substantially less to students and taxpayers alike. Economically, these women are certainly earning competitive salaries compared to high school graduates, but much of their income is unreported, for better or worse.
It’s incredibly common, for example, to pay a wedding makeup artist in cash or through banking apps, which adds up to a good chunk of money working a few weekends a year. That flexibility is a key part of why people go into cosmetology in the first place. Cosmetology graduates are almost exclusively women and often choose this career pathway for reasons other than salary, including the flexibility to raise a family.
Beyond that, a beauty career is fulfilling and in demand. The government’s own data projects growth in the professional beauty industry in the coming decade. In an era where artificial intelligence is shaking up the world, being able to provide such a hands-on, individualized service is a valuable skill that has a more certain future than many other careers.
Concerningly, women’s ability to take on this career is at risk. The plan from the Department of Education would lock many aspiring, entrepreneurial women out of small-dollar loans to secure a cosmetology license. This effort, to be finalized in the coming weeks, will shrink the government loan portfolio by at most 0.5% but will lock out 93% of cosmetology schools — and the communities they serve — from receiving federal funding. The worst part is that nowhere does the One Big Beautiful Bill Act even authorize this, but the Left is pouncing on this flub anyway, using it as a cudgel to impede any attempts at reforming the way we pay for higher education.
RESTORING AMERICA: AS FEDS PULL BACK STUDENT LOANS, STATES SHOULD REFORM COSMETOLOGY LICENSING
Closing doors for hardworking women in beauty programs will not help families or the Trump economy (or Make America Hot Again, for that matter). Especially seeing how committed Education Secretary Linda McMahon has been to creating opportunities for women — especially in career and technical education — and to cutting red tape from the historically wasteful Education Department, the Trump administration should focus on lowering barriers to cosmetology licensure instead.
Right now, it takes longer to secure cosmetology licensure than to become an emergency medical technician, but it doesn’t need to: the secretary of education has the authority to decide how many hours of cosmetology the Department of Education will fund. By requiring schools and states to trim these requirements — and, with them, the amount of time and money spent on these programs to remain eligible for federal funding — Trump and his administration can provide more pathways to meaningful jobs for Americans at a lower cost to taxpayers.
Neeraja Deshpande is a policy analyst at Independent Women.