The Trump administration is pulling back federal student loans for cosmetology schools — and it’s a great opportunity for states to stop forcing aspiring beauticians to take on debt just to practice their trade.Under the administration’s proposed “Do No Harm” rule, colleges and trade schools can no longer enroll pupils using federal student loans if their graduates earn less than early-career workers with only a high school diploma. The logic is that postsecondary education should, at a minimum, make people better off than those who never went to college. If graduates can’t clear this basic benchmark, they are unlikely to be able to afford their loan payments.Unfortunately, most cosmetology schools fail to meet this very basic standard. Four years after completing their programs, cosmetology graduates earn a median salary of just $27,000 — while similarly aged high school graduates earn around $35,000. As a result, cosmetology schools have among the nation’s worst loan-repayment outcomes, with roughly one-third of borrowers more than three months behind on their debts.
The Trump administration is right to pull the plug: more than 90% of cosmetology schools are expected to fail the “Do No Harm” rule and lose access to federal loans. That will protect hundreds of thousands of students from unaffordable debt. Meanwhile, taxpayers will no longer have to eat the cost when those borrowers inevitably fail to repay.
