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Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) is vying to be the next chair of the House Education and Workforce Committee, she told POLITICO on Monday. Here are excerpts from an interview with Foxx about her priorities and plans, should she ultimately become head of the committee.

On her priorities for next year:

"Higher ed is top of the list," Foxx said of her plans for the committee next Congress. The main goal is reauthorizing the Higher Education Act, she said. But it's too early to tell whether the next Congress would actually finish a rewrite of that massive law. "We're not going to know until after the election this fall," she said.

Foxx also said she wanted to "do whatever we can to stop the rules coming out of the Labor Department - either block them or repeal them." That includes the department's overtime rule, she said.

"I'd like to see more accountability on the part of the colleges and universities in terms of at least providing data to us," she added. "How many students who get Pell Grants are graduating in four years, five years, six years? You know, they don't keep information on things I think we'd like to see." 

Foxx said that colleges spend too much time and energy collecting data for the federal government that's not necessarily useful. "There's a huge difference between having a lot of data and being able to provide information," she said. At the same time, she said, "We need information to make decisions about what we're doing with hardworking taxpayer dollars."

On improving data through a student unit record system:

"I don't want a student unit record," she said. "Government tracks us. Everybody tracks us enough right now."

On the differences in working with a Trump administration versus a Clinton administration:
"Having a Trump administration would be akin to having heaven on earth" compared to "what we've gone through the last eight years," Foxx said.

"I would expect that we get a lot accomplished under a Trump administration because I'm going to assume that the people that he would surround himself with would be philosophically a lot more in sync with Republicans than anybody in a Clinton administration. I think we'd just see an extension of the Obama administration if Mrs. Clinton is elected."

On whether she's talked to anyone in the Trump campaign or on the transition team about education issues:

"A little bit but not too much," Foxx said. "That hasn't been one of their priorities."

Is it concerning to her that Trump hasn't made education a priority? 

"Not exactly, because my attitude is the federal government shouldn't be involved in education. It's not mentioned in the Constitution. And I take the Tenth Amendment pretty seriously. If it isn't mentioned in the Constitution for the federal government to do, then it's left to the states and individuals."

On implementing the Every Student Succeeds Act: 

The Obama administration in many cases has ignored the legislative intent of ESSA and that "calling their hand on that will be important." Foxx said the committee would "make sure that the Department of Education does what it's supposed to do with the ESSA."

"That's going to take a lot of oversight," she said. "And I expect to see that happen in the next session of Congress." 

'There's a lot of appetite for that on the part of the committee," she said. 

On the collapse of ITT Tech and the Obama administration's policies on for-profit colleges:

"It's a travesty," Foxx said of ITT's collapse, which she blamed on the Obama administration. The students are "the ones being hurt." 

"Did [the administration] give any thought at all to the impact they're having on those poor students?" she said. "It's nuts what they're doing."

Foxx said "there's not one iota of proof that the school ever did anything wrong." The administration, she said, declared ITT "guilty without any evidence and without a trial."

All types of colleges and universities "should be treated the same," Foxx said. "What this administration's done with for-profits is totally arbitrary."

"I don't want to see any institution whether it's in higher education or anywhere else take advantage of hardworking taxpayers," she added, saying that federal money should be "well-spent whether it's at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill or whether it's at a community college or wherever it is."

On how Congress should impose more accountability on colleges and universities: 

"You start with transparency," she said. "You start with saying, 'you have got to show people exactly what it costs and what are the results of someone going to your college or university.'"

"How many people are graduating? How long does it take them to graduate? What kind of burden do they have in terms of debt when they leave, when they graduate, or if they leave? And are they getting jobs in their field?"

On whether federal aid to colleges should be based on additional performance metrics: 

"No," she said. "We can not be a national school board, and we can't do price controls at the federal level. I'm not in favor of that. I'm in favor of educating the public and letting the public make decisions about what to do."

She suggested that the market would force changes at colleges that aren't doing a good job of educating their students. In addition, she said that states should step up their oversight of colleges: 

"Legislatures ought to be pushing more efficiency at the state level, particularly with state-supported schools."

On Hillary Clinton's and other Democrats' plans for debt-free or tuition-free college:

"There's no such thing as debt-free, tuition-free - somebody is paying for it," she said. "It's not up to the federal government to provide a free college education for people. It's not our role."

On who she'd like to see as an education secretary under Trump or Clinton:

"I don't know. I haven't given any thought to that at all," she said. "I've had my plate full right here."

On whether she'd like to see a return to bank-based student lending: 

"Right after we got back in the majority [in 2011] somebody said to me, 'Virginia that ship sailed. Don't try to change it,'" she said. "But under a Trump administration, who knows? We should not be the biggest bank in the world in the federal government. We should not be. The market has worked very well in this country, again, over the years."

On whether there should be a federal Education Department:

"No," she said. "But let me tell you this. God has not put me in charge and I understand that ... If I were in charge, I'd change dramatically the way the federal government works. But I believe I'm a realist."

"What you try to do is roll things back a little at a time," she added. "Now, for some of my colleagues, that's not fast enough. For some people in the country, it's not fast enough. And, again, if I were unilaterally in charge I'd do a lot differently. But I would do as much as humanly possible to roll back the functions of the federal government in education." 

https://www.politicopro.com/education/story/2016/09/politico-pro-q-a-rep-virginia-foxx-129116