Louisiana State Board of Cosmetology (LSBC) Member Jean Pitre expresses concern that up to 92 percent of for-profit cosmetology schools may have to close their doors as a result of proposed new “gainful employment” provisions. Pitre expressed his concerns at the May 4, 2026 LSBC meeting.
Today’s Sound Off Louisiana feature will be the first in a series dedicated to items discussed at the meeting of the LSBC of Monday, May 4, 2026.
First, on a housekeeping note, both braiding bills are dead for this Legislative Session with neither bill having obtained even a hearing before the House Commerce Committee. On a positive note, however, a bill to permit estheticians to blow dry hair (we’re not kidding) appears to be sailing toward approval having originated in the Senate with essentially no opposition and having cleared the Louisiana House Commerce Committee meeting this morning (Monday, May 11, 2026) also with no opposition.
While the bill had no opposition from lawmakers, there were the usual doomsdayers who testified against the bill, to include Lynn Johnson repeating her claim that “strokes” could result from the bill’s passage. Interestingly, even for a measure so simple as this, lobbyist Ryan Haynie’s name was read into the record as being in opposition to the bill. Fortunately, it appears Louisiana State Legislators are finally starting to see that the LSBC is dead set on blocking even the most basic of services in Louisiana. We take that as a very good sign which is long overdue!
Our main focus today, however, is the near panic among for-profit cosmetology schools over the U.S. Department of Education’s “gainful employment” (GE) provision.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA, enacted 2025) introduced broader earnings accountability measures effective around July 2026. The Department’s April 2026 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeks to harmonize and extend an earnings-focused test to these programs via amendments to the GE framework. Public comments on this proposal will close on May 20, 2026.
LSBC Member Jean Pitre, who has traveled to Washington, DC to become educated on the full impact of the provisions, gave a 13-1/2 minute presentation at the May 4, 2026 LSBC meeting, at which he stressed that up to 92 percent of for-profit cosmetology schools may have to close their doors due to failure to meet “gainful employment” provisions:
Pitre voices his concerns at the May 4, 2026 LSBC meeting.
These are our thoughts on the matter:
Amazingly, Pitre actually says, “This is all Federal funds. It’s their money. They have a right to do what they want with it.” That’s the whole problem with entities who syphon taxpayer resources. They act like the Federal Government is some mythical agency out there. Federal funds are our funds! Furthermore, with the nation running a $2 trillion a year deficit and being at war, it’s our firm opinion that programs like these need to be abolished in favor of more efficient means of delivery of instruction!
In fact, let us provide an outstanding feature focusing on high school vocational programs, emphasizing benefits such as hands-on training, faster career entry, lower costs, and practical skill development compared to these massively-expensive for-profit cosmetology schools for which tuition often approximates $15,000 to $20,000.
Here is a perfect example of courter arguments to Pitre’s self-serving boohoo cries in the video above:
- Cosmetology Students Deserve Better Than Debt and Broken Promises (New America): Advocates for alternative low- or no-cost pathways, including high school career and technical education (CTE) programs and registered apprenticeships, to improve outcomes and reduce reliance on high-cost programs. It explicitly promotes these models as preferable for training: https://www.newamerica.org/insights/cosmetology-students-deserve-better-than-debt-and-broken-promises/
- From the above feature:
As soon as the rule was released, the cosmetology education industry pushed back, urging beauty and barbering schools to call for a weaker rule and to gut the accountability provisions entirely so that outcomes data is used for informational purposes only. This isn’t new for this sector. As our research has shown, the cosmetology education industry is backed by a powerful lobby that tries to preserve its access to federal aid despite a poor track record of being good stewards of that investment. The industry has sued the Education Department repeatedly over any accountability rules, it has blamed the demographics of their students as a driving reason for their poor outcomes, and has lobbied to keep licensure hours high, while fighting to keep low-cost providers and pathways at community colleges or through registered apprenticeships out of cosmetology education altogether.
It should not be a surprise that industry advocates are advancing claims about this new accountability rule that don’t hold up. Just over 9 in 10 cosmetology and barbering programs would fail the new earnings premium metric, according to the American Association of Cosmetology Schools’s analysis of Education Department data. This will likely cause programmatic and institutional closures for those reliant on federal student loans to operate. But these rules are designed to ensure that students enrolling in programs that result in low earnings are not taking on taxpayer-funded loans they may be unlikely to repay.
Since Pitre encourages those with an obvious vested interest who syphon off the Federal taxes we pay for these “broken promises” as outlined in the article above before the May 20, 2026 deadline, we want to encourage regular, everyday taxpayers to do the same! Anyone is welcome to make such public comment as follows:
Simply by clicking on this link.
We have already supplied our public comment, and we certainly want to strongly encourage everyday citizens fed up with the waste of taxpayer dollars (which Pitre calls “their money”) when far more efficient and cost effective avenues are available at existing Louisiana high school programs which, in our opinion, need to be significantly expanded to replace these high-cost leaches of taxpayer dollars!
It’s time to stop the madness of flushing ungodly amounts of our tax dollars down the toilet on for-profit cosmetology schools which, in reality, help facilitate predatory lending and don’t even care that they’re doing so because they actually could care less if the student ultimately repays the debt or not, but we certainly should!