Opinion

Federal regulations are about to wreck the industry that gave me everything

Department of Education's proposed rule would defund schools serving veterans and single mothers

By John Paul DeJoria Fox News

Published May 11, 2026 5:00am EDT

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In 1980, I was a Navy veteran sleeping in a 20-year-old car, scraping together $700 to start a hair care company with a stylist named Paul Mitchell. We believed the American Dream was still open for business. Forty-six years later, that same dream is what a federal rule is about to close down for the next generation.

The Department of Education has proposed an earnings premium metric under the gainful employment rule that will judge career programs by one rigid number: whether vocational graduates, four years after completion, earn more than the typical full-time worker aged 25–34 in the same state without a college degree. Programs that fail the test in two out of three years lose access to federal student aid. According to the Department’s own data, more than 92% of beauty and barber programs nationwide would fail.

This is not a minor regulatory tweak. It is a death sentence for thousands of cosmetology, barber, esthetician and nail schools across America. Without Title IV aid, most students — many of them single mothers, veterans, first-generation Americans and working-class kids —........

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