Federal accreditation review puts 120,000 beauty school students' aid at risk

A federal accreditation proceeding with real consequences for student loan access is moving toward a final decision at the U.S. Department of Education. The National Accrediting Commission of Career Arts and Sciences, known as NACCAS, which the organization says oversees roughly 1,300 cosmetology and beauty institutions enrolling more than 120,000 students, is waiting for a senior department official to rule on whether its federal recognition will survive. That ruling, not the advisory vote already on the books, determines whether those schools retain access to Title IV funding.

The split recommendation

Department staff reviewed NACCAS and came back with a middle path: prohibit the agency from accrediting new institutions until it demonstrates compliance, require corrective action within 12 months, and mandate additional reporting. The National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity, or NACIQI, rejected that approach at its July meeting and voted 9-3 to recommend denial of renewed recognition outright.

Zakiya Smith Ellis, who served as a senior Department of Education official under the Obama administration and now sits on NACIQI, made the motion. She argued the agency had already been given time to fix compliance problems and questioned whether another window would matter. She also cited concerns about debt and earnings outcomes among students at NACCAS-accredited schools. Michael Poliakoff seconded the motion. Three members voted against denial, among them Robert Eitel, who held a department post during Trump's first term. Eitel argued the right outcome was requiring NACCAS to fix its deficiencies, not stripping its recognition, and raised concerns about what revocation would mean for enrolled students.

What the setup actually looks like

Here is where consensus gets pressure-tested. The committee member who pushed hardest for denial is a former Democratic administration official who has publicly defended DEI policies. The member who argued most forcefully for leniency is a Trump-era veteran. That alignment is worth holding in your head when the broader narrative frames this proceeding as an extension of the administration's war on accreditors.

The White House's April executive order directed the department to investigate whether accreditors impose DEI-related requirements on schools. The deficiencies identified in the NACCAS review have nothing to do with DEI. The department said it cannot comment while the process is ongoing.

Students at affected schools are not waiting quietly. Aliyah Fernandez, a graduate of the Hollywood Institute and a mother now working as a salon assistant, told Fox News Digital she could not have attended without federal financial aid. Blythe Fields, an expectant mother working days and attending school at night on what she described as 12-hour schedules, said she went broke paying out of pocket for prior esthetician training and spent roughly two years saving tips to afford more education. Both joined a petition asking the department to choose monitored improvement over outright denial.

What to watch is the senior official's final ruling, the third and binding step in the five-year recognition review cycle the department described to Fox News Digital.

Related reading

• Mount Sinai agrees to halt youth gender procedures in DOJ settlement, dedicates $2 million to harm care
• College football's eligibility fight draws fire from Merriman as SEC presses LSU in Alabama court