Pittsburgh cosmetology school teaches on despite state probes, complaints

An affordable, flexible, high-quality education. This is what prospective students of Fountain of Youth Academy of Cosmetology are promised. 

The school, with locations in Squirrel Hill and Bellevue, says its programs provide the “perfect combination” of “technical, life and business skills” needed to become hairstylists, skin and nail care professionals or teachers in those areas. 

While Fountain of Youth states in its latest school catalogue that it can’t guarantee students who enroll there will be employed after graduating, it reports that more than 90% of students complete the program, become licensed and find employment — well above the 60% mandated by its accrediting agency. 

In February 2025, though, that agency — the National Accrediting Commission of Career Arts and Sciences, or NACCAS — placed the school under monitoring for “low outcomes,” mostly concerning the number of people who find jobs after graduating, which was found to be “unverifiable.” 

“There are a lot of working people and moms that would never be able to attend schools that are able to attend school because we offer that.”

owner cheri Herold

Cheri Herold, the owner and founder of Fountain of Youth, wrote in a message to Public Source that the agency’s move had “nothing to do with the school’s performance.” She said outcome rates were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and further explained in an interview that the monitoring status was due to the school not submitting its annual paperwork to “the standard of NACCAS.” 

The school remained under monitoring for the better part of 2025. 

A Public Source investigation revealed the school has repeatedly faced court and regulator complaints from former students and employees for nearly a decade, according to over 200 pages of documents reviewed. Investigators from various state agencies, such as the Office of Attorney General, have met with students throughout the years about their complaints, including as recently as February.

Students have reported feeling they weren’t given an adequate education or a clear picture of their financial responsibilities when enrolling. Among the allegations: 

• A former employee in a 2022 federal lawsuit claimed Herold “admitted to forging” a student’s signature on a federal student loan document to “obtain financial aid” that would flow to the school without that student’s “consent or knowledge.” The employee said this behavior left students with debt they struggled to pay off.  
• A former student in a 2022 affidavit said they were charged for items they did not receive and were not refunded for “unused financial aid” after withdrawing from the school. Federal law requires schools to return unused federal financial aid dollars to the government and provide a refund to students in the case of an underpayment.  
• A former student said she sent a letter to the state Board of Cosmetology in 2021, saying that the school was withholding documents and standing in the way of the student getting licensed and starting their career. 
• Two former students told Public Source their transcripts were withheld before they were set to graduate. Letters from the state department’s prosecution division — including one from last year — said that the school “may have violated” Pennsylvania regulations by not providing records to students upon request.  

Herold called the allegations old and false in a message, saying, “I would be closed if any of that had been true.” She said the school’s flexible scheduling helps “a lot of people get their education and then their career.” 

“There are a lot of working people and moms that would never be able to attend schools that are able to attend school because we offer that,” she wrote.  

Public policy think tank New America found that cosmetology schools often avoid “real responsibility” despite low performance findings and regulatory infractions, costing students in the long run. It outlined a pattern that’s played out in states across the country where schools continue to operate even when authorities are aware of complaints.

“There are several states that I think could do a little bit better about stepping up,” said Jeremy Bauer-Wolf, one of the report’s authors. He pointed to Florida’s process for handling complaints from private institutions, in which “they rely predominantly on the school itself to provide a rebuttal,” rather than “seeking substantive information” that could lead to a resolution.

How the investigation process plays out in Pennsylvania agencies is not transparent. Multiple agencies would not disclose to Public Source whether they have acted or plan to act on concerns about Fountain of Youth. 

Complaints filed against the school also aren’t made available to the public. When Public Source submitted Right-to-Know Law requests, the documents returned largely redacted the details of complaints. 

‘It happened to me’

Hairstylist Judith Johnson only enrolled at Fountain of Youth in 2021 at her mother’s behest. 

Fed up with questions about her life plans following a gap year, Johnson searched for nearby cosmetology schools, and Fountain of Youth was the first one she reached out to. She didn’t look any further because, as she put it, “I kind of just figured they were all the same.”

Soon after enrolling, she said she began hearing about fights between Herold and students over financial issues. 

Students “would just come into the salon floor being really upset, complaining that she’s messing with their FAFSA [Free Application for Federal Student Aid], she’s trying to charge them more, she’s taking advantage of them,” Johnson said. 

Herold denied arguing with students in her interview with Public Source.

Johnson said the incidents concerned her, but she couldn’t afford to transfer schools, so she resigned herself to keeping her head down.

“I thought, ‘Well, OK, maybe if I’m just careful and I don’t rock the boat at all, maybe that won’t happen to me.’”

Johnson had to drop to part-time enrollment to get a job. She also took leaves of absence for reasons ranging from sickness to bereavement, which kept pushing her graduation date back. She was initially slated to graduate in May 2022, but instead finished that August. 

Just before completing her program, she said, “Of course, it happened to me.”   

Johnson said she was told she owed the school $3,000 and wouldn’t be able to receive her transcript until the balance was paid off. Without transcripts proving the necessary hours to take a state exam were completed, students are unable to get licensed. Johnson said she was sure she had paid that up front, and after several meetings where her mother was present, Herold relented.

A few weeks later, Johnson said, Herold told her she owed $1,000 because she graduated later than the date proposed in the enrollment agreement she signed at the start of her program. The agreement states that the school charges $250 for every week beyond the end date specified. Johnson’s agreement end date was amended multiple times, according to a copy obtained by Public Source. 

Herold told Public Source that she couldn’t comment on the specifics of Johnson’s time there, including whether or not she had a balance. She also questioned Johnson’s motives in describing her time at the school to Public Source.

“I mean, she’s working in a salon, she got her license, she was able to pass her test, she did everything she needed to do. So, why are you a bitter Betty?” she said. 

Johnson said she believed Herold only released her transcripts, allowing her to become licensed, after intervention from the state attorney general’s office. Johnson said she filed a complaint with the office and spoke to an agent in its Bureau of Consumer Protection in early 2023. The transcripts were released that April. Johnson said Herold pinned the delay on a paperwork mistake made by a former employee. Johnson said she did not pay the $1,000 in fees for graduating later.

“I thought, ‘Well, OK, maybe if I’m just careful and I don’t rock the boat at all, maybe that won’t happen to me.’”judith johnson

Asked about the paperwork mistake, Herold said she remembered the situation, but she had to “be careful” about what she shared with reporters. Ultimately, she said, “her file was audited, and everybody that’s looked at this — legal people looked at this because [Johnson] made so many complaints — nothing was wrong, nothing egregious was done here.

“We did not violate any rule, regulation, anything.”

The same Bureau of Consumer Protection agent who met with Johnson three years ago was recently in communication with another former student, according to an email dated Feb. 19, obtained by Public Source. The agent did not respond to interview requests. 

Brett Hambright, a spokesperson for the attorney general’s office, said he could not comment on or confirm the existence of investigations, or discuss complaint details. He said complaints are vetted for “mediation options that could provide immediate relief for consumers.” The complaints are then kept by the bureau “for any future actions deemed appropriate.” 

Johnson took the state exam and received her license in July 2023. She called the experience liberating, saying, “I felt like I really fought for it.”

Withholding transcripts? ‘100%’

Johnson’s experience echoes details shared by other students Public Source spoke to, as well as allegations in a 2022 lawsuit filed in federal court by a past employee. 

Two other former students told Public Source they had to involve parents or legal counsel to receive transcripts and settle unexpected charges from the school.

A student who graduated from the school in 2021 laid out her experience exiting the school in a letter to the state cosmetology board that Public Source obtained. She described Fountain of Youth staff as “blatantly” ignoring her requests for documents necessary to take the state exam, despite being “paid for in full” with federal student loans. 

“I have no other path to licensure than through you,” the student wrote to the administrator. 

Herold said transcripts were “100% held,” up until a federal rule changed two years ago mandating that all transcripts had to be released. She said she was doing what “every college and every school” did in providing a service in exchange for payment, expecting the other party to hold up their end of the agreement.  

“No one liked it, of course, and you turn that around, they’re actually scamming me, or trying to scam,” she said. “At the end of the day, I have overhead. I have to be paid.”

The U.S. Department of Education issued a rule that starting July 1, 2024, higher education institutions could no longer withhold transcripts from students who paid tuition using federal financial aid.

Sarah Austin, a policy analyst with the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, said it would be “impossible” to know what the transcript withholding policies were for “every school in the country” prior to July 2024. She also said that some states had rules addressing withholding in the absence of federal guidelines. 

Pennsylvania was one of the states mandating that cosmetology schools give students their records when asked. 

Documents returned in response to Public Source’s Right-to-Know Law requests revealed the Department of State’s prosecuting attorney wrote to Herold three times since 2018 about failure to provide paperwork to students. 

In one of the letters, dated April 18, 2025, the attorney wrote an “investigation suggests Fountain of Youth Academy of Cosmetology may have violated [cosmetology] board regulation … for failing to make copies of a student’s attendance, scholastic and financial records available to the student upon request.” 

Herold said transcripts are no longer withheld.

‘We do things the right way’

When former operations manager Jennifer Michael sued Fountain of Youth and Herold in 2022, she described the owner as having “intentionally misled” students about the funding they received to attend.

According to Michael’s complaint, Herold told students that “financial aid would cover tuition, kits, books, etc. needed to complete their program,” only to later tell them it didn’t and that they had a balance of “roughly $1,000-2,000 owed.”

The complaint said that for students who paid off their balances before graduating, Herold “would change the amount owed” and then tell students that “they still owed a balance and would require them to pay even more money before release of their transcripts.” 

“As a result, students were not able to sit for their boards to become licensed,” the complaint said.

Michael’s complaint added that Black women were specifically targeted by these practices and sometimes left with “significant debt without any way to repay it.” Federal data shows that Black women make up more than half of the school’s students.

Michael did not respond to interview requests. 

A lawyer for Herold and Fountain of Youth responded to Michael’s claims, saying that withholding transcripts until balances were paid wasn’t “found as an illegal practice by the Pennsylvania Attorney General when a student owing a balance complained.” The lawyer stated that students could work in the cosmetology industry without licenses.

Michael’s lawsuit also alleged forgery, saying that Herold admitted to forging a student’s signature on a Master Promissory Note — a binding document in which students commit to repaying federal loans — after being confronted by the student. Michael claimed Herold told the student it was “common practice to do so to speed the process along.” 

Public Source also obtained a December 2019 complaint to the department’s Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs in which the filer said the school would “forge signatures.” 

Herold said the forgery accusations were “ridiculous.”

“We do things the right way, 100%. I take care of my people. I have documentation out the ying-yang for everything, and I follow the contract,” she said. 

Bauer-Wolf at New America called forgery allegations at cosmetology schools “a persistent issue,” but said he wouldn’t “characterize it as common.” 

“The big overarching issues beyond just the ground level was that these schools really were designed to extract as much aid from students as possible,” he said. 

Michael’s lawsuit was “resolved amicably” in 2023, according to court records. Herold said she was not allowed to comment on the way it played out. 

Years of monitoring 

Last year, Fountain of Youth’s accrediting agency, NACCAS, flagged the school for “unverifiable” rates relating to the number of students who were employed after graduating in 2021. The agency requires schools to maintain job placement rates of 60%.

In a 20-page letter from the agency to Herold on Feb. 6, 2025, NACCAS said the school would be placed under monitoring status because it failed to provide proper documents proving former students were employed. The documents Fountain of Youth presented included prints of Facebook pages and websites, showing employers for three students that did not match those initially reported to the agency. 

The school’s accreditation — a must-have for institutions to receive federal financial aid — was renewed, but for five years rather than the maximum of six. In the letter, the agency said the monitoring status “constitutes probation or equivalent status,” which occurs when a school breaks its policies. If a school doesn’t address the reasons for a status change by a certain date, it runs the risk of losing accreditation. 

Federal law says any accreditation-related updates must be publicly disclosed to current and prospective students. Herold provided a PDF of a catalogue that mentioned its “probation or equivalent status” on one of the pages. Public Source could not find an online catalogue disclosing that status when reviewing the school’s website using Internet Archive snapshots taken last year.

Fountain of Youth was given a year to return to compliance, and was removed from monitoring status in September. Public Source reached out to multiple staff members at NACCAS to discuss the situation. None responded. 

Herold said NACCAS is “very legalistic” with detailed paperwork, and the school fell short of submitting its “best work” for 2021 because her team “thought it was kind of redundant and wasn’t going to be looked at.”

She said Fountain of Youth was able to get off monitoring status by submitting 2022 documentation and ensuring the school “dotted our I’s and crossed our T’s.” 

Before the agency’s move, the school was also under heightened cash monitoring by the U.S. Department of Education from 2022 to 2024, a status that the agency assigns when it finds a “lack of financial responsibility.” This occurs when a school’s audited financial statements are flagged for not meeting department requirements. 

Under Department of Education monitoring, schools must front their own money to students before the department disburses funds.

The heightened cash monitoring came about because “our numbers just weren’t as good,” said Herold. She added that every school and business has “a good year and bad year.”

The Department of Education did not respond to questions from Public Source.

Herold said getting off monitoring requires one good financial year. After 2022, she said the school’s next audit was “perfect,” but the department was behind in removing them from the list.

Herold provided copies of audits for 2022, 2023 and 2024, in which an independent auditor found the school was in compliance with Department of Education requirements to continue receiving federal financial aid. 

“Having a clean audit is not necessarily all a school would need to do to get off” monitoring, according to Austin at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. She said that a two-year wait to be removed from monitoring would be unusual, though she did not know about Fountain of Youth’s specific situation.

Regulatory, enforcement agencies mum

At least 13 complaints filed about Fountain of Youth since 2017 have been investigated by the Pennsylvania Department of State, according to records received in response to a Right-to-Know Law request. None were prosecuted or led to disciplinary action, despite warnings that “future complaints of this nature could lead” to such actions. 

A spokesperson for the department said they “generally” review every potential license violation they learn of, “whether that is through a complaint filed directly to the department, a notification from local law enforcement, or through media reports.”

Herold said the 13 investigations Public Source found were “not many in the scheme of it,” referring to the decade-plus that the school has been operating.

“Every so often, there is one, and again, I mean, I haven’t gotten a fine yet,” she said.  

The last time the school faced any state disciplinary action was in 2010, when it was fined $1,100 for failing an inspection of its former building in Mars and not maintaining student records. 

Through emails and documents obtained, Public Source confirmed that at least four state agencies have been contacted about Fountain of Youth in the last seven years: the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation [OVR], the Office of the Inspector General, the Office of the Attorney General and the Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs. 

OVR provides services to help disabled residents become employed. Michael’s 2022 lawsuit said Fountain of Youth committed unspecified “acts that resulted in a substantial abuse, misuse, destruction and loss of [OVR’s] funds/resources.” OVR has previously paid for students to attend the school. 

Danielle Woods, press secretary for the state’s Department of Labor and Industry, which includes OVR, identified two recent complaints about the school, one filed with OVR and the other naming the agency but filed with another state office. In an email to Public Source, she said the last complaint made directly to OVR about Fountain of Youth was on March 6, 2024. She couldn’t provide any details on the nature of the complaint or whether it was resolved. 

“I haven’t gotten a fine yet.”  owner cheri herold

Woods also said the state Inspector General’s office contacted OVR last April about a complaint concerning the school. She added that “due to confidentiality requirements, only general OVR policies and procedures were discussed.”

“OVR loves me,” Herold said in an interview where she presented Public Source with a document showing that current students are receiving funds from the office. 

Unlike states including Virginia, Oregon and South Carolina, Pennsylvania doesn’t have a public database or report of consumer complaints against businesses. 

Bauer-Wolf from New America said that “there are good actors in this field, even though there’s a lot of widespread problems, too.” Without public disclosure of complaints, he said, students — often, those from vulnerable backgrounds — are put at risk of making underinformed decisions about their education.

It’s imperative for these complaints to “reach the public’s ears” and not only exist in backchannels, he said. “Of course, states have limited resources, but I do think that these issues are going to come to a head, especially under a U.S. Department of Education that seems to be very laissez-faire when it comes to accountability issues.” 

He said whether it’s keeping databases of complaints or outcomes for schools, this is a “role states absolutely should be playing.”

Maddy Franklin reports on higher ed for Pittsburgh’s Public Source, in partnership with Open Campus, and can be reached at madison@publicsource.org.

Kate McGee, investigative editor at Open Campus, contributed to editing this story. 

This story was fact-checked by Katherine Weaver. 

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