Weekly Update

_{Stylists like Krystal Gibbs, who works at a salon in Spring House, Pa., say it can be hard to earn enough to make ends meet while also paying back their cosmetology school loans. Credit: Meredith Kolodner/The Hechinger Report}

Beauty schools exempted from rules about how much graduates should earn

Remiah Ward’s shift at the SmartStyle salon inside Walmart was almost over, and she’d barely made $30 in tips from the haircuts she’d done that day. It wasn’t unusual — a year after her graduation from beauty school, tips plus minimum wage weren’t enough to cover her rent.

She scarcely had time to eat and sleep before she had to drive back to the same Walmart in central Florida to stock shelves on the night shift. That job paid $14 an hour, but it meant she sometimes spent 18 hours a day in the same building. She worked six days a week but still struggled to catch up on bills and sleep.

The admissions officer at the American Institute of Beauty, where she enrolled straight out of high school, had sold her on a different dream. She would easily earn enough to pay back the $10,000 she borrowed to attend, she said she was told. Ward had no way of knowing that stylists from her school earn $20,200 a year, on average, four years after graduating. Seven years later, her debt, plus interest, is still unpaid.

In July, Republicans in Congress pushed through policies aimed at ensuring that what happened to Ward wouldn’t happen to other Americans on the government’s dime; colleges whose graduates don’t earn at least as much as someone with a high school diploma will now risk losing access to federal student loans. But one group managed to slip through the cracks — thousands of schools like the American Institute of Beauty were exempt.

Certificate schools succeeded in getting a carve-out. The industry breathed a collective sigh of relief, and with good reason. At least 1,280 certificate-granting programs, which enrolled more than 220,000 students, would have been at risk of losing federal student loan funding if they had been included in the bill, according to a Hechinger Report analysis of federal data.

Do you out-earn high school grads?

A Hechinger Report analysis of federal data found at least 1,280 certificate programs could have been at risk of their students losing access to federal student loans — but a successful lobbying effort excluded them from the accountability measures.

Explore the database to see which certificate programs might have been flagged under the Trump law if not for the exemption.

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Rural Americans worry about possible funding cuts to Head Start programs

For almost as long as she’s been a mother, Sara Laughlin has known where she could turn for help in this western Ohio town 20 miles north of Dayton.

For years, the local Head Start program provided stability and care for her oldest son, and it now does the same for her two younger children, twin boys. Head Start was there for Laughlin and her family through tough transitions, including the end of a long relationship. She credits the free federally funded program, housed in a blue building on the edge of this manufacturing hub of 27,000, for allowing her to keep her job as a massage therapist while raising three kids.

“If we had to pay for child care, I would not be able to work,” Laughlin said. “There’s no way I could do it.”

So, Laughlin said, she was “dumbfounded” when she heard this spring that Head Start was targeted for elimination in an early draft of President Donald Trump’s budget proposal. In small towns and rural areas throughout the country, voters like her were key to both of Trump’s election victories. Laughlin was particularly attracted to his campaign promise to eliminate taxes on tips, which she relies on. She couldn’t conceive why cuts to early childhood programs would be on the table.

What I learned about Head Start in rural America

by Jackie Mader

Fires, floods and other disasters

High schools and community colleges are introducing or expanding classes in fire science, search and rescue and ecological sustainability.

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