Most Part-Time Friendly Beauty Schools in San Francisco, CA Metro Area

WRITTEN BY Casey Lozier | EDITED BY Jessica Santina | UPDATED ON 05/28/2024

Most students in California beauty schools work while they complete their programs. Beauty school programs are also popular with parents of younger children and others who need flexible schedules.

Many beauty school students want their programs to be available part-time to accommodate their busy lives. We took a look at the top schools for students seeking flexible schedules. Here's what we found.

Most Part-Time-Friendly Beauty Schools in San Francisco, CA Metro Badge

San Francisco, CA Most Part-Time Friendly Beauty Schools

#1: Hilltop Beauty School — Daly City

49.3% part-time students

Students who want to become hairstylists, skincare specialists, or manicurists can study at Hilltop Beauty School. Students who take classes part-time benefit from the school's longevity in the field—it has existed for over 60 years. It is continually refining its curriculum so its students graduate with cutting-edge, up-to-date skills.

If you want to study part-time, you'll be in good company; 50% of the student body follows a part-time schedule.

#2: The Salon Professional Academy — San Jose

42.1% part-time students

The Salon Professional Academy-San Jose has a couple of scheduling options for students in its cosmetology and esthetics programs. It also offers an advanced makeup artistry program that takes just 84 hours to complete, making it an attractive option for students who don't have months to dedicate to their schooling.

#3: San Francisco Institute of Esthetics & Cosmetology — San Francisco

31.4% part-time students

The San Francisco Institute offers flexible part-time scheduling for cosmetology and esthetics students. Students on either track benefit from the school's approach to instruction. By following the Multiple Intelligences instructional framework, students are equipped with resources to learn in ways that help them most readily absorb information.

#4: International College of Cosmetology — Oakland

22.4% part-time students

The International College of Cosmetology caters to students from Spanish-speaking or Vietnamese backgrounds. ICC students can take their entire cosmetology or manicuring program in Spanish. Vietnamese students can take the Vietnamese-language manicuring course. The school's esthetics courses are only offered in English at this time.

Cosmetology students can choose from schedules that allow them to complete their programs in 6, 7.5, 10, or 14 months, meaning that each week, students can choose to spend between 16 and 40 hours per week in class or in the salon.

More San Francisco-Area Beauty School Rankings

Methodology and Editor’s Notes

We compared educational institutions from the Beauty Schools Directory database of beauty programs across the U.S. Those analyzed for these rankings were educational institutions that:

Report into the U.S. Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS)—predominantly institutions with programmatic accreditation
Had 50 or more students over the course of 12 months as of 2022
Were not a vocational/technical high school, community college, or postsecondary school that mainly offered programs outside of beauty training. We also excluded institutions offering massage therapy programs exclusively. These types of institutions were omitted for various reasons that make key data points difficult or irrelevant to compare apples to apples. We intended to compare standalone beauty schools or schools that mainly train beauty students.

Data was sourced from 2022, the latest available as of publication date.