Beauty school shuts down, leaves students scrambling

“I was hanging out with a couple of friends and I kinda just dropped everything and started bawling,” said Ashley Espich, a former student at Regency Beauty Institute.

Espich needed just five more days to graduate from Regency on Grape Rd. in Mishawaka.

Instead, the cosmetology school, along with all 78 other campuses across the country, suddenly shut its doors, Wednesday night.

“I don’t know what else to do from here,” said Espich.

On regency’s website, there’s a list of what they’re calling multiple intertwined reasons for closing.

Reasons include declining numbers of cosmetology students nationwide, not enough cash to run the business, and politicians negatively characterizing for-profit education.

“Our phone, obviously we’ve been a very busy place today due to the concerns about training at another location,” said Joseph Nash, president of Vogue Beauty College in Mishawaka.

Nash says his school is welcoming former Regency students with open arms.

“We’ll embrace the students that come on and depending on where they are with their hours and those types of things,” said Nash.