Many high school seniors, often with parents who are unsure or skeptical, wonder if they’re making a mistake by choosing beauty school instead of a traditional four-year college. It’s a question we hear frequently at Cosmetology & Spa Academy: is beauty school easier than a four-year college? Many students wrestle with whether to take the traditional or practical route, but the reality is that the answer ultimately depends on your goals.
The Time Difference Is Dramatic
Here’s what we tell prospective students when they tour our schools: You will not be here for four years. You won’t even be here for two years.
Our cosmetology program typically takes 10-12 months to complete, depending on whether you choose full-time or part-time enrollment. That’s it. Some students finish in as little as ten months if they’re motivated and consistent. Others take closer to fourteen or fifteen if they’re working a job on the side or have family responsibilities.
Compare that to a traditional bachelor’s degree. Four years minimum, often longer if students change majors or need extra semesters. And those first two years? They’re usually filled with general education requirements that have nothing to do with your actual career goals.
We don’t do that here. From your very first week, you’re learning techniques you’ll use in an actual salon. Color theory, cutting fundamentals, sanitation protocols, client consultation—everything we teach is directly tied to the work you’ll be doing when you’re licensed.
One of our graduates from last year, Marcus, put it like this: “My friends were still taking biology and English comp while I was already practicing balayage on real clients. It felt like I was two years ahead even though we started school the same year.”
How Students Actually Learn Here
We’re going to be honest about something: if you loved high school and thrived in traditional academic settings, you might love college too. Lectures, research papers, exams covering broad theoretical concepts—some people genuinely enjoy that format.
But we’ve noticed a pattern with the students who end up thriving here. They’re usually the ones who struggled to stay engaged in traditional classroom settings. Not because they weren’t smart, but because sitting still and absorbing information passively didn’t work for their brains.
Our cosmetology training model is completely different. We demonstrate a technique, you practice it immediately, we correct your form in real time, and then you do it again until it clicks. There’s no waiting until the end of the semester to apply what you learned. You’re applying it within hours.
Our instructors came from the industry—they spent years working in salons and spas before they started teaching. So when one of our instructors is teaching color correction, they’re not teaching from a textbook. They’re teaching from the thousand times they fixed someone’s botched box dye job or corrected brassy highlights.
And our students work on real people almost immediately. We run student salons at all our locations where community members can book discounted services. They know they’re getting students, and our instructors are supervising everything, but these are real appointments with real expectations.
That’s where actual learning happens. When you accidentally leave toner on too long and have to figure out how to fix it. When a client describes what they want but the picture they show you is completely different. When someone sits down and says “just do whatever you think” and you have to make a confident decision.
You can’t learn that from a textbook.
The Financial Reality Nobody Talks About Openly
This is the conversation that gets uncomfortable, but we’re going to have it anyway because it matters.
The average cost of a four-year public university in Illinois is somewhere around $25,000 – $30,000 per year when you factor in tuition, room, board, books, and fees. Private schools? Often double that. We’re talking about $100,000 to $200,000 for a bachelor’s program, and most students are taking on significant loan debt to cover those costs.
Our tuition is nowhere near that. We’re talking about a fraction of one year’s university costs for an entire professional beauty program. And while some students do take out small loans to cover tuition, the amounts are manageable—the kind of debt you can actually pay off within a year or two of working, not a decade. Moreover, there’s plenty of opportunities to benefit from financial aid.
But here’s the other side of the equation that people don’t think about: opportunity cost.
When you spend four years in college, you’re not just spending money—you’re also not earning money. Four years of potential income, gone. Four years of building professional experience and client relationships, gone.
Our graduates start working almost immediately. Some of them work as assistants in salons while they’re still completing their hours with us. We’ve had students doing freelance makeup for weddings and events before they even graduated.
So by the time a traditional college student is walking across a graduation stage at 22, our graduates have often been working professionally for two or three years already. They have real-world experience, established client bases, and in many cases, zero debt.
That head start compounds. It’s not just about the money you save on tuition—it’s about the income you earn earlier, the experience you gain faster, the professional reputation you start building while your peers are still in gen ed courses.
What the Industry Actually Looks Like Right Now
We pay attention to industry trends because we have to. Our job is to prepare students for the careers that actually exist, not the careers we wish existed.
And right now? The beauty industry is booming. Not just surviving, actually growing. The global beauty market is worth hundreds of billions of dollars, and it keeps expanding. Salons and spas around the Chicago area are constantly hiring.
There’s also something else happening that doesn’t get enough attention: the profession offers real flexibility and control. You can work at an established salon. You can rent a chair and essentially be your own boss.
You can specialize in a specific niche such as bridal hair, color correction, barbering, men’s grooming, extensions, keratin treatments and build your entire business around that expertise.
We have graduates working at high-end salons in downtown Chicago. We have graduates who opened their own studios. We have graduates who work three days a week because that’s what fits their life, and they make enough from those three days because they’ve built loyal clientele who pay well for quality work.
There’s no corporate ladder you have to climb. No waiting for someone to promote you. If you’re good at what you do and you treat clients well, they come back. They refer friends. Your reputation grows. That’s your career security. It’s based on your actual skills and relationships, not on whether some company decides to keep you around.
Why Students Tell Us They’re Glad They Chose This Path
We did informal surveys of our graduates from the last two years, just asking them about their experiences. The thing that came up over and over wasn’t about money or time, though people mentioned both. It was about feeling like their work mattered right away.
One graduate told us, “I spent a year at community college feeling like I was just checking boxes. Here, every single day, I could see myself getting better at something real.”
Another said, “I love that I can make someone feel confident. Like, they come in feeling invisible and they leave feeling beautiful. That’s my whole job. How is that not meaningful?”
We hear a lot about the lifestyle too. Several graduates mentioned having control over their schedules in ways their friends with traditional jobs don’t. Being able to take a Tuesday off if they need to. Being able to work evenings and weekends if that fits their life better. Building a career in beauty that doesn’t require them to ask permission from a boss for every little thing.
And honestly? A lot of students just tell us they’re relieved they made this choice instead of forcing themselves into a college path they knew wouldn’t work for them.
If You’re Trying to Figure Out Your Next Move
Here’s what we tell students who are on the fence:
You don’t have to decide between beauty school and college forever. Some of our students plan to go back and take business courses later if they want to open their own salons. Some do beauty as their main career and take random college classes in subjects they’re curious about. The paths aren’t mutually exclusive.
But if you’re sitting there feeling pressure to choose a four-year degree because that’s what everyone expects, and deep down you know it doesn’t feel right—listen to that instinct.
If you learn by doing rather than reading, if you want to work with your hands, if you get energy from making people feel good about themselves, if you want to start your actual career sooner rather than later—then beauty school might genuinely be the smarter path for you. Not easier. Just smarter for who you are.
Come See What We’re Actually About
If you’re in the Crystal Lake, Elgin, Rockford, or Schaumburg area and you’re curious, book a tour and check out one of our campuses. Walk through the student salon areas. Watch some classes if you want. Talk to current students and ask them the real questions.
You can also call us at 815-455-5900 or email info@csa.edu. Our staff is always more than happy to answer any questions you may have!
