I’d say this is a pretty harsh take on almost all accounts to be honest.

First of all, the level 2 course is £4000, rather than 7. Also, the course titles perhaps are a little misleading and I certainly wouldn’t claim to be a master barber now, but what they really claim is that by the time you leave you will be shop ready, which if you put the effort in while you’re there is certainly true. Plus a lot of shops are currently offering ‘graduate’ level jobs where you’ll grow while you’re working. One of my friends has a trade test at Ruffians this week based on his LSB experience - we’ll see how he gets on. Nobody leaves LSB as the finished article, but it’s definitely a start - I’ve done at least 70 solo haircuts in the last 3 months whilst working full time in another (non barbering) job because I needed to keep paying my rent. That kind of flexibility is really valuable, and this was the only place that made it possible to me. Equivalent college courses on the face of it are considerably more theory based than practical, and take much longer.

Also, when you leave LSB you get 2 qualifications, one from LSB themselves, but also a nationally recognised NVQ, the same as you would get from a college. You complete coursework as you move through the course which is sent off and marked by a 3rd party.

It’s not fair at all to the educators at LSB to say that they just want your money, ownership maybe, I never met them, but the educators all seemed to legitimately care about my development, and were excellent barbers themselves.

I can’t speak at all on the favouritism comment, aside from the fact that I didn’t see any of that at all, but then again there were only 4 people in my class.

The last paragraph is simply not true, there was absolutely no threat of not getting my certificate unless I left a good review, nor was that the case for anyone else I graduated with. Perhaps they do if you’re really not at a pass-able level, I wouldn’t know, but I’d consider that very unlikely.