To get a license from Illinois to cut hair, aspiring barbers must complete the same number of training hours commercial airline pilots are required to log for flight training: 1,500. It’s nearly double the 640 hours required for Illinois State Police officers and more than 10 times the 120 hours required for licensing as an emergency medical technician.
Beauty professions — barbering, cosmetology and hair braiding — stand out as some of the most heavily regulated occupations in Illinois. The rules are a relic of a bygone era, when barbers originated as a branch of surgeons; the same people who were supposed to cut hair were also expected to cut other body parts.
That rationale no longer makes sense for the industry today, yet the training requirements haven’t caught up. Illinois forces workers to jump through expensive, excessive regulatory hoops that are not only virtually unnecessary but also perpetuate income inequality. State lawmakers should learn from other states that have improved these rules and pass proven reforms that make it easier to enter the field.
These are — or should be — accessible, achievable careers for people with low-income backgrounds, minimal education or even a criminal record. Yet disproportionate regulatory demands on these careers exploit the very people such professions might otherwise help.
The 1,500-hour licensing training — which amounts to 40 hours a week for nine months — is completely unpaid; trainees are not even allowed to accept tips. At the same time, for-profit barber, cosmetology and hair braiding trade schools now come with tuition that can exceed $17,000. This puts these jobs out of reach for people who don’t have outside support keeping a roof over their heads or who aren’t willing to take on large student loan debt.
Training demands far exceed those of careers that are both better paid and higher risk. Even with reported tips, the median income for a barber in Illinois is only about $36,300 a year, about $10,000 less than the average state income per capita.
Deregulation opponents bring up sanitation concerns. No one wants to get lice or become sick from a haircut or shave. But even under current regulations, covering sanitation and safety takes only 200 training hours
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, or about a month. Other professions in the industry, such as tattoo artists, do not require an Illinois license or test at all.No one is saying training isn’t necessary; rather, that it’s simply inefficient. Illinois could model states that have lower hour requirements before licensure. The 500 training hours dedicated to hair cutting and styling techniques, which aren’t part of licensure tests, could be optional, instead of mandatory, as they are subjective and not standardized. New York requires only 500 hours of training — one-third the number in Illinois — and its safety standards do not appear to have suffered.
Another option is to make training more accessible, as Illinois House Bill 3460 seeks to do. The bill, which just passed the General Assembly, establishes an apprenticeship path to licensing, providing a new avenue to meet training requirements. Aspiring barbers can now learn from industry vets, get their hours in a salon and get paid for their efforts. This should open the door to thousands of candidates who simply couldn’t afford a year without pay otherwise.
The state could go even further by offering some of the classroom instruction online as hybrid programs approved by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. Online coursework would give students interested in the career more flexibility to learn on their own schedule while working at the same time. Connecticut offers this model for barber licensing, allowing online instruction paired with in-person training or apprenticeships.
Finally, Illinois could adopt universal license recognition, which removes barriers for licensed professionals moving from other states. Someone who has earned a license elsewhere should not have to repeat the process here. Research shows universal recognition increases employment by almost 2 percentage points.
Hair may be precious, but there’s no reason to treat the profession more harshly than those rescuing us in ambulances. If Illinois can give hairstylists some freedom, thousands of hardworking entrepreneurs would get a new door to opportunity.
Eric Zamarripa is a licensed cosmetologist and the owner of Skull and Thrones Hair Society in Addison and Elmhurst. Jess Plowman is the communications producer for the Illinois Policy Institute.
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