Article: Beyond beauty schools. (federal aid to student loans)

Katherine Boo is an editor of The Washington Monthly

There are lots of things the government should train the poor to do. Sculpting nails isn't one of them.

Tommy Wayne Downs spent the eighties in the ghettoes of Nashville, selling permanent waves as the path to the American dream. With just six months' training at his school of hair design, Downs cajoled, erstwhile welfare moms could earn $30,000 a year as stylists in Nashville's tonier salons.

If Downs had a talent for this rags-to-riches spiel, it was probably because their rags were his riches: for every poor student he lured in, he reaped thousands of dollars in federal student aid. Guaranteed student aid, ...

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