In some high-growth, high-paying programs, such as information technology and advanced manufacturing, the share of women and girls is smaller than it was a decade ago, according to the National Alliance for Partnerships in Equity.

Title IX made it illegal for schools to steer students into particular fields based on their gender, and required institutions to ensure that disproportionate enrollment was not the result of discrimination.

In the 40 years since it passed, the nation has spent millions encouraging girls and women to pursue degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math. Fewer resources have gone into persuading them to trade their blow dryers for welding torches, however.

In the 1980s, and 1990s, Congress required states to set aside a share of their federal job-training funds to eliminate sex bias in career and technical education. But policymakers eliminated most of those rules in 1998, replacing them with a requirement that states increase participation and completion rates for both men and women in programs where they’re underrepresented.

Congress added teeth to that law in 2006, threatening states with the loss of federal funds if they failed to meet specific targets. So far, though, no states have been stripped of their funds despite the fact that only six states have consistently met their targets since the law was enacted.

In addition to recruitment methods that favor one sex, career counseling that channels students into stereotypical fields, and fear of sexual harassment, the biggest contributor to the gender divide in certificate programs may be socialization, said Mary Alice McCarthy, the director of the Center on Education and Skills at the New America Foundation.

Even today, “men are much more sensitive to salary signals then women,” McCarthy said. “It goes deep into our understanding of our roles as caregivers or providers.”

Over in the cosmetology classroom, Kaylie Hudson, 31, was giving a bob to a brown-haired mannequin with a mullet while other students practiced their skills by giving discounted haircuts to locals. She said she hadn’t given much thought to how much she might earn as a hairdresser. Her dream is to open a salon that would give cut-rate cuts to low-income women “so they feel better going into job interviews.”

In fact, with her certificate in cosmetology, she’s likely to earn less than the average high-school grad, according to the Georgetown center. That begs the question of why women would pay for certificate programs—even taking on debt to do it—to end up with little to no earnings boost.

For Lorelei Shipp, 44, who is cutting her friend’s hair in the salon next door, it’s about freedom and flexibility. As a hairstylist, she expects to make half what she earned as a customer-service manager in the corporate world, “but the work-life balance will more than make up for it.”

DeeDee Patterson, an instructor in the cosmetology program, can count on one hand the number of men she’s taught in the past eight years. She said male hairdressers are in high demand because “women want to look good for men, and men know what looks good on women”—and often out-earn female colleagues. But just as women are afraid they’ll be perceived negatively by co-workers in male-dominated fields, men considering cosmetology “are afraid they’ll be stereotyped as too feminine.”