Massage Educator Newsletter

5 Tips for When Educators Don’t Have All the Answers 

By Chris Curry, LMT, BCTMB 

Many teachers know the feeling: an inquisitive student asks a challenging question and your mind goes blank. Even worse is when you genuinely think you should know the answer, but don’t. These can be hard moments as a teacher, but they can define how students receive you. How you answer questions can deeply shape a student’s experience. Often, teachers feel the need to overcompensate and know the answer to every question. Instead, I offer the idea of being honest and humble while being curious with them.

I distinctly remember being a student in an anatomy class—I asked a question and my instructor responded with, “You should already know that.” I don’t remember what my question was, but I remember my teacher’s response, and then I never asked them another question. As a student, I had been vulnerable to say, “I don’t know,” and ask a question. This moment helped define my teaching future, because I realized how much potential there is in answering questions for students. A question is an opportunity for real learning, for real connections. This is where the power of “I don’t know” can come in for educators, because while questions are incredible opportunities, we cannot know everything, nor should we. It doesn’t really matter if you’re the student or the educator—being able to be vulnerable and say “I don’t know” can be profound. 

Do No Harm: What’s Next

By Laura Puryear

Massage and bodywork schools have earned a little reprieve as the US Department of Education (ED) allowed a one-year delay on the implementation of its new earnings metric tied to financial aid.

For background, ED made the proposed accountability framework rules permanent on June 29, 2026. The “Do No Harm” rules, as originally written, would have spelled disaster for most massage therapy programs. The new earnings metric formula developed by ED compares the median annual earnings of working completers of undergraduate programs four years post-graduation to the median earnings of working adults age 25–34 who only have a high school diploma or its recognized equivalent. Programs that fail this test for two out of three years will lose eligibility for Title IV funding, more specifically, direct loans and Pell funds.

The intent of this test is to ensure students are financially better off after completing undergraduate programs than they would be without that education. While the intent of this measure is a good idea in theory, the formula didn’t take many key details into account, including regional differences in salary, gender and racial pay gaps, the difference between full-time and part-time salaries, and tipped income (which often goes unreported on tax forms).

The tip issue leads the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to report income data far lower than the actual income for many professions, including massage therapy. The incorrect data from the IRS and a flawed formula that doesn’t account for part-time professions leaves massage therapy graduates looking like they are financially worse off than they would have been had they not graduated from a massage therapy program.

Do No Harm: Why My School Shouldn’t Opt In

Almost all massage therapy programs will fail the earnings metric as currently written. Opting in early only opens you up to potentially losing federal aid sooner. And if you don’t currently accept federal aid, so you think opting in couldn’t hurt, remember that if your school does fail the test, you would be closing your school off to the option of accepting direct loans or Pell grants in the future, potentially for many years.

You should be warned that there is a way you could opt in early to this flawed earnings metric formula without even meaning to. If you neglect to report your FVT/GE information like usual, or submit it late, you will automatically opt yourself into the new earnings metric a year early, even if you don’t intend to do so. So, this year more than ever, it is critical that your school submits this data on time. Otherwise, ED will assume you are choosing to opt into the new metric early, and you could lose your Title IV funding before the profession has a chance to set this whole issue right.

Now, you may say, “well we would only lose it for two years, we could survive that.” Unfortunately, that’s incorrect. On paper it may look as if by failing the test for two out of three years and losing Title IV funding, all you need to do is appeal or reapply after your penalty period of a couple of years. The reality is much more complicated. First, the appeals options are severely limited. The only appeal ED will hear is one that can prove they did their math wrong. The next complication is that the period of ineligibility you enter after failing the test has some significant parameters. If a program fails, it will be very difficult to regain eligibility for federal funding. Even if you discontinued your program, ED would continue testing the earnings of your graduates for another seven years, so you would likely have to wait at least that long to regain eligibility.

There is, of course, a lot more to it than that. But the takeaway here is that if your school loses Title IV, there is no quick fix. You could spend years trying to get it back and still not succeed. The best option is to avoid losing it altogether, and there are ways to do that beyond asking your graduates to report their tips and hoping for the best.

Do No Harm: What Are My School’s Options?

So, what can you do to protect your school? The first thought you may have is a tuition drop, but it is important to note that debt is not considered in this test, so changing the cost of your program will not help.

One pathway that will protect your current students, but not future ones, is to voluntarily discontinue your program. This would allow your existing students to continue to benefit from Title IV funding through the completion of their program. Like you, we do not want any of your programs to shut down. But if you don’t have any other choice, voluntary discontinuation is an option to help you preserve federal funding through your teach-out.

There is another route that could give your program a bit more runway, potentially allowing you to keep operating without losing federal funding until the current or next administration fixes this deeply flawed formula. Some schools might be able to replace their massage therapy programs by changing Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) codes. Changing the taxonomy of your program and making appropriate tweaks to the curriculum could gain you another three years or so, but only if you do it the right way. We strongly recommend hiring a professional to help you with the process; an attorney with a practice in higher education would be ideal. But we can give you a rough overview here so you can decide if you want to learn more and perhaps pursue this option.

First, you need to know that your replacement program must roll out before you discontinue the existing program, otherwise it will not be eligible for Title IV. The requirements for voluntary discontinuation of a program are not clearly defined, but the most likely scenario is your program is considered “discontinued” when you stop enrollment (this is something you should clarify with your attorney and ED before acting).

Your “new” program, which, to be clear, would essentially be a rose by another name, could be created one of two ways: by changing the credential level (going from undergraduate to associate, for example), or by changing the CIP code. With both examples, you wouldn’t be able to just slap a new name on the same program; you would have to make appropriate modifications to the program. These could be minor, like adding another course, tweaking curriculum hours, or increasing or decreasing total program hours. But this is something you would need to work on with your staff and, ideally, an attorney with experience in higher education policy.

Your program’s CIP code likely falls under “51.35 Somatic Bodywork and Related Therapeutic Services.” Within that category, there are four specific codes. That means, given the right tweaks, you have three other codes to choose from when launching a “new” program, potentially giving you a few more years of breathing room.

Do No Harm: Report Your Tips

In regards to the earning’s metric, it’s hard to say whether a change in tip declaration data alone will be enough to save our programs. We don’t know what the profession’s revenue will look like with tips included because we’ve never been able to collect that kind of data before, and current studies on the topic conflict. That is why it is so important that everyone in the profession includes all their income on their taxes this year—every dollar could make a difference in the outcome.

One of the most impactful things you can do right now to protect your programs is to hammer home the importance of reporting tips on tax forms to your students and alumni. We know you already teach them to report their tips. After all, it’s illegal for them not to. But the reasons now go beyond beefing up their future social security payout, creating a more realistic picture for loan servicers, and not getting audited—it could now be a deciding factor in the future of massage therapy education.

While reporting taxes is critical, it doesn’t solve the problem entirely. Some programs may still be on the chopping block even if the revenue reported next year comes back much higher, but the good news is you have options to protect your school and your students.

Bene’s Career Academy Awarded First Ever School Award in ABMP's Massage Is for EveryBody Contest 

ABMP is proud to have partnered with Hand & Stone to give the first ever Massage Is for EveryBody School Award to Bene’s Career Academy in Florida for their work in the community. With programs in massage, esthetics, and cosmetology, the school has locations in New Port Richey and Brooksville.