The DOE Rule That Could Close Most US Cosmetology Schools, and the 21 Days That Got Lost

Picture Janelle, who runs a 14-student barber school above a laundromat in Toledo. Three of her current students are veterans. Two are single moms working part-time at her affiliated shop while they finish their hours. Her school's tuition is $7,900, almost all of it covered by federal Pell grants and Title IV student loans.

On April 20, the US Department of Education published a proposed rule in the Federal Register. If finalized as written, it would judge Janelle's program against a new earnings benchmark. Programs whose graduates do not, within four years, earn more than typical high-school-educated workers aged 25 to 34, lose access to Title IV federal student aid. Programs that fail the test in two of three years lose Title IV access entirely.

Janelle's students start at chair-rental wages and tips. They take three to five years to build a steady chair, sometimes longer. By DOE's metric, every barber school in Ohio fails.

So would, by the Department's own data, 92% of beauty and barber programs nationwide.

On May 11, Paul Mitchell co-founder John Paul DeJoria published an op-ed in Fox News sounding the alarm. He is right. He is also 21 days late, through no fault of his own. The rule had been a public document on the Federal Register's website the entire time.

This is the post we wish Janelle, and DeJoria, had seen on April 20.

What the rule actually does

The Department of Education's proposed regulation, formally titled "Accountability in Higher Education and Access Through Demand-Driven Workforce Pell: Student Tuition and Transparency System (STATS) and Earnings Accountability," implements provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed July 4, 2025. The core mechanism is what the Department calls an earnings premium metric.

Under the proposed rule:

• Every program that participates in Title IV (Pell grants and federal student loans) gets measured against the median earnings of working adults aged 25–34 who hold only a high school diploma.
• Graduates of the program must, within four years, earn more than that benchmark.
• Programs that fail two out of three years lose Title IV eligibility.

The rule is technically agnostic about industry. In practice, it treats every credential the same way: as if it were a four-year college degree judged on starting salary.

It is not a four-year college degree. A cosmetology certificate takes 9–15 months. A barber certificate is shorter. Graduates earn their living on tips and clientele, which the Department's earnings data does not see well. DeJoria's line in his op-ed nails the core flaw:

"Many earn the majority of their money through tips and clientele-building, income that grows substantially after the first few years but is invisible."

If the rule is finalized as written, the Department of Education will use IRS wage-and-salary data (which systematically undercounts tips, undercounts cash payments, and only looks four years out) to decide whether a barber school in Toledo or a cosmetology academy in rural Mississippi can keep accepting federal student aid.

The answer for 92% of those schools will be no.

What got lost in the 21 days

The op-ed has done a useful thing: it has put the rule in front of millions of readers, including some who run beauty schools, some who write trade-association policy, and some who serve in Congress.

But the comment window does not open after the op-ed. It opens when the rule is published in the Federal Register. Comments on this rule have been open since April 20.

Three weeks of comment window expired before this issue trended.

A few of the things that could have happened in those three weeks:

• 20,000 public comments from operators and parents. When the Department of Education's last Title-IV-eligibility rule went through comments in 2022, it received fewer than 9,000 public submissions. A coordinated beauty-school comment campaign in late April could have changed the regulatory record.
• Industry-association coalitions. AACS (American Association of Cosmetology Schools), NACCAS (the accreditor for most beauty programs), and state cosmetology boards could have organized joint comment letters with concrete numerical evidence on tip income, late-stage earnings, and credential ROI.
• Lawmaker outreach. Both chambers have members whose districts contain beauty deserts in waiting. April 20 to May 11 is enough time to get 30–40 House offices to weigh in publicly with the Department.
• Operator-level mitigation plans. Janelle's barber school could have begun documenting graduate earnings outside W-2 wages (tip logs, 1099 income, chair-rental revenue) for use in compliance reporting if the rule is finalized.

None of those things require a billionaire op-ed. They require operators knowing about the rule the day it was published.

A solution that does not require an op-ed

Federal proposed rules are public. They have always been public. They are also written in dense legalese, posted on a website that small business owners do not visit, and indexed under code names that have nothing to do with the industries they affect.

Bizmoon is a regulation-and-funding monitoring service built specifically for small business owners. We read every new rule published in the Federal Register, plus the state-level registers of more than two dozen states. Each rule gets translated into plain English and matched to a business profile: industry, location, size, what the business actually does.

A barber school owner in Toledo with NAICS code 611511 (cosmetology and barber schools), set up in Bizmoon, would have received a notification on April 20, 2026 about a Department of Education proposed rule with potential impact on her Title IV eligibility, with a one-paragraph summary and a link to the comment-submission page.

She would have had 60 days to:

1. Submit a public comment. The comment window is still open at the time of writing. Check the Federal Register entry above for the current deadline.
2. Talk to her state cosmetology board. Most have legislative liaisons who track exactly this kind of rule.
3. Document her graduates' real earnings. Including tip income, chair rental, salon ownership equity, and freelance 1099 work: the income the Department's metric will not see.
4. Pre-write a compliance plan. If the rule survives, schools with documented multi-source income data will be in a better position to argue for industry-specific carve-outs during the final-rule comment period.

What DeJoria's op-ed gets right, and what to add

DeJoria's specific policy ask is correct and surgical: exempt undergraduate non-degree and certificate programs in licensed trades from the earnings-premium test. Congress already wrote that exemption into the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The Department's proposed regulation does not honor it. That is the cleanest fix.

Three additions worth pushing alongside DeJoria's framing:

1. Tip-income inclusion. The Department uses IRS wage-and-salary data, which only sees reported W-2 income. Cosmetology earnings include a 30–60% tip component plus 1099 chair-rental income. The metric needs an industry-specific multiplier, OR programs need an avenue to submit alternative graduate-income documentation.
2. Longer measurement window. Four years is too short for trades where clientele takes 3–7 years to build. A 7-year window with a sliding earnings benchmark would still serve the rule's stated intent (filter out predatory programs) without sweeping up legitimate licensed trades.
3. Use of state licensure data. State boards already track license renewals, complaints, and license density per graduate. That data is a far better proxy for "did this credential lead to gainful employment" than IRS wage data is. The Department could partner with state boards for a more accurate earnings picture.

What a barber school owner should do this week

If you run a cosmetology or barber program (or you advise one) the comment window for this rule is still open at the time of writing. Concrete next steps:

1. Read the rule. The Federal Register entry is here. The earnings-accountability sections are the ones that matter for licensed trades.
2. Submit a comment. Use the docket linked from the Federal Register entry above. Cite specific graduate income data, your tip-percentage estimates, and the licensed-trade exemption Congress already wrote into the OBBB Act.
3. Loop in your state board and your accreditor. NACCAS and AACS both maintain comment templates that members can co-sign.
4. Document everything. Whatever the rule looks like in final form, programs with strong graduate income records (including tips, 1099 work, chair-rental data) will be in a better defensive position.

And going forward

This is not the last federal rule that will catch the beauty industry by surprise, or the construction industry, or the trucking industry, or any of the trades where federal agencies and trade-school accreditors have historically misunderstood the actual economics.

If you run a small business and you have not been reading the Federal Register for fun, start a Bizmoon profile. Setup takes about five minutes. You will see every federal rule that touches your industry, every state rule from the two dozen-plus states we cover, every comment window before it closes, and every grant and tax credit you might qualify for, all matched to your business profile and summarized in plain English.

The next op-ed should not have to be written.

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If you are reading this and you know John Paul DeJoria personally, please send him a link. The beauty industry is lucky to have an advocate of his weight. But operators like Janelle should not have to wait for a Fox News op-ed to learn about a rule that could close their business.