What the "Do No Harm" Provision Means for Beauty School Students

According to the OBBBA, the DNH provision makes several changes to Title IV of the Higher Education Act — including changes to Pell Grant eligibility, accountability requirements for eligible programs, and student loan protections.

How Does This Affect Students in Beauty School?

• Students receiving other non-Title IV grant aid that equals or exceeds the student's full cost of attendance are ineligible for a Pell award.
• All Title IV-eligible programs require students earn more than they would have had they not attended the program. For undergraduate degree programs, the median completer who is working and not a student must exceed the median earnings of 25–34-year-olds in the state who only have a high school diploma or equivalent — failure to meet this requirement could risk schools losing their eligibility.
• The law delays the implementation of the Biden Administration's Borrower Defense and Closed School Discharge rules for 10 years.

Why Is the Beauty Service Industry So Low Paying?

Although the hair and beauty industry generates billions of dollars annually, beauty service providers make relatively low incomes due to unfair labor laws, high operational costs, commission model vulnerability, lack of opportunities, and industry exploitation.

As of April 2026, an Assistant Stylist working at Ulta in Temecula is paid $17 an hour — just $0.10 above the median wage in California — while fast food workers earn $20.00 per hour. After being licensed, a new cosmetology school graduate could make only $35,360 a year, falling short of the OBBBA's earning requirements for Title IV eligibility.

This gap puts both students and schools in a difficult position: beauty programs risk losing federal funding eligibility simply because industry wages haven't kept pace with the new law's benchmarks — benchmarks set against a workforce that was already underpaid.