A $21,000 Cosmetology School Debt, and a $9-an-Hour Job | Hacker News Reader

A $21,000 Cosmetology School Debt, and a $9-an-Hour Job

nytimes.com

16 pointshoward94113 comments

> For-profit schools dominate the cosmetology training world and reap money from taxpayers, students and salon customers. They have beaten back attempts to create cheaper alternatives, even while miring their students in debt. In Iowa in particular, the companies charge steep prices — nearly $20,000 on average for a cosmetology certificate, equivalent to the cost of a two-year community-college degree twice over — and they have fought to keep the required number of school hours higher than anywhere else in the country.

For comparison, I looked up the cosmetology program at a nearby non-profit community college here in Washington, Olympic College. The Associate in Technical Arts degree in Cosmetology program, which qualifies you for the Washington State Cosmetology License examination, take 5 quarters. It requires 109 credits, and it looks like tuition and fees would be about $10k.

The required cosmetology course list is (first column is number of credits):

   2 COS 101 Professional Career
   2 COS 102 Cosmetology General Sciences
   3 COS 103 Hair Care, Hairstyling & Haircutting
  12 COS 151 Cosmetology Lab Clinic I
   2 COS 105 Hair Color
   2 COS 113 Intermediate Haircutting
   2 COS 114 Advanced Chemical Texture Services
   2 COS 120 Cosmetology Skin Care
  13 COS 152 Cosmetology Lab Clinic II
   2 COS 115 Intermediate Hair Color
   2 COS 123 Advanced Haircutting
   1 COS 130 Nail Care
   1 COS 135 Wigs, Braiding/Extensions
  13 COS 153 Cosmetology Lab Clinic III
   1 COS 121 Facial Makeup
  13 COS 154 Cosmetology Lab Clinic IV
   2 COS 225 Advanced Hair Coloring
   1 COS 231 Business Skills I
  13 COS 155 Cosmetology Lab Clinic V
   1 COS 232 Business Skills II
   4 COS 240 State Board Preparation
   2 COS 104 Chemical Texture Services

(A couple of these have prerequisites that are not in the list. My tuition estimate took those into account)

Also required is 5 credits of business math, 5 credits of business writing/grammar or English composition, and 3 credits on human relations in the workplace.

I think the tuition fee is reasonable. It’s the interest. Let’s define the problem. Basically, usary.

9$ an hour is also pretty bad for an adult.

I was making that sweeping the floor in factory after school when I was 14 (must be like 15 years ago). Of course I live in Denmark.

(Not that I think tuition is a good idea, but it's not necessarily the problem).

The fee would be ok if the actual education was 2100 hours. But in actuality half of it is pay-to-apprentice and much of that is sitting doing nothing just to fill hours.

There's a key para in the middle. The legislature mooted a bill to reduce the excessive school-hours requirement, but since more paid lobbyists from the schools (paid for by the scam schools that the bill was trying to stop) showed up than victims (who couldn't afford to travel to the senate to beg for help), they dropped the bill.

Also the private schools lobbied successfully to make school was required by law but make publicly funded schools illegal. Their argument was simply that publicly funded school would hurt their profits. Strangely the same economic argument does not apply to the citizens of the state, who are not presumed entitled to profit. Legislatures make laws to protect moneyed interests, not the public.

I hope that salons unite to boycott licensing requirements and hire staff who skip these scam schools.

> Thirteen years after graduating, she still owes more than $8,000.

Paying off $13K+interest in 13 years with a $9/hour job is not bad really. There are some people in better situations that still don't pay of their debt.

The course expensiveness might take some blame, but there are key questions being unanswered here: if the barrier to entry is so high why are them earning from 9$ to 10.5$/h after years of practice? That's like a 1% yoy increase in wages, they aren't even keeping up with inflation.

Seems the journalist skept a lot of the more interesting questions to pursue the sob story angle while presenting a very narrow view that prevents understanding the situation fully.

Its actually regulatory capture by the existing players that makes it harder for a newcomer to work in the industry. The training required by laws for hair dressers can be long and onerous.

Would be really great if articles behind paywalls weren't being featured

I actually think the rise of "free" news is a big problem; like there has always been the crazy free daily that you could get if you went down to your local city, but it was local and of limited distribution, 'cause printing costs money.

The marginal cost of printing has gone to nearly zero, while the cost of writing good content has, if anything, gone up.

Now, I, too, want a more reasonable way to pay to read news. I mean, it's damn inconvenient to just buy that one story. But I have subscribed to a few papers on my kindle and try to get more of my news from those than from "free" sources on the internet.

Interesting article, but why single out cosmetology?

Artists, writers, musicians, etc. all pay hefty fees for school and most don't make great salaries. This is true for public schools, many have 4 year programs that end up costing much more than $21k.

Those subjects might also have problems, but this story is about cosmetology. Not every story needs to be about every problem at the same time. You can’t boil the ocean.