Beyoncé is investing in the next generation of barbers and hairstylists with her newly launched Cécred x BeyGOOD Student Scholarship Fund.
As part of the initiative, the “Texas Hold ‘Em” singer will donate $500,000 to five cosmetology schools across the U.S., including the Black-owned haircare institute her mom, Tina Knowles, graduated from back in the 1980s, Franklin Institute, CBS News reports. Other recipients include Beaver Beauty Academy in Atlanta, Trenz Beauty Academy in Chicago, Universal College of Beauty in Los Angeles, and Janas Cosmetology Academy in New Jersey.
Each school will receive a business grant with the Cécred x BeyGOOD Salon Business Grant, giving 25 students from each institute $10,000 in financial aid scholarships and another 25 salon owners $10,000 in grants. The schools, selected based on market research, will help bridge the gap in an industry that requires an average investment of $14,000 in
Texas and $20,000 nationally to get started.“One of the foundations of BeyGOOD is economic equity. And so to think about that, the underbelly is that there is an inequity,” Ivy McGregor, executive director of BeyGOOD, said.
“We believe that everybody has the right to thrive. And so the thing that we’re excited about, while our tenets are education and entrepreneurship, both of them converge through this program.”
It’s a full-circle moment for Houston’s Franklin Institute. It helped set Tina Knowles on the path to opening her Headliners Salon, which served as Beyoncé’s first performance stage during her childhood.
“She had a wonderful salon here in Houston. It wasn’t that she just graduated from Franklin; she actually really impacted the Houston community with her salon,” fourth-generation Franklin Institute owner Ron Jemison Jr. says.
His great-grandmother, Madam Nobia Franklin, founded the school as a hair salon in San Antonio, Texas, in 1915. Since then, the Franklin Beauty Culture School has been in Fort Worth and Houston in Texas and Chicago before moving back to Houston in 1934, where it serves as one of the country’s oldest Black-owned businesses still standing.
In recent years, Jemison has revamped the school to Franklin Institute, where they teach hair stylists and provide barbershop classes to a diversified racial makeup of students.
“This is the foundation. You’re talented, but you have to know the rules and regulations. You have to pass this test to move forward because you have people in your hands,” he said.
“You’re actually putting chemicals on their hair that could actually have a reverse [effect], and all the hair falls out. So, that’s why it’s so important to go to school. We call them doctors; they’re hair doctors.”
Coming on the heels of Beyoncé’s launch of her Cécred haircare line, the scholarship fund falls in alliance with her new entrepreneurial endeavor and her affinity for the haircare industry through her hairstylist mother. Franklin Institute’s inclusion gives the Knowles family a chance to pay it forward to their hometown in a full-circle way.
“In her hometown of Houston, her commitment has never wavered, right? Every opportunity to give, first on her list is home. And so we’re super excited to have this opportunity to really make an impact that will be sustainable,” McGregor said.
“And that’s part of the goal; not just to create a ripple that is just for now, but to create something that for years and years and years to come, we can look back and say, ‘We started the fire, but the fire is still burning, and the fire is still lit.'”
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