News Home

Rep. Virginia Foxx, who confirmed her candidacy to chair the House Education and the Workforce Committee this week, said in an interview that she'd use that role to give a high priority to providing more information to college students through an update of the Higher Education Act.

Foxx, the panel’s third-ranking Republican behind Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina, is seeking to succeed Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., who is retiring at the end of his current term. Wilson has endorsed Foxx for the post, so she appears poised to get the Republican Steering Committee’s nod.

She also chairs the Higher Education and Workforce Training Subcommittee, an important position as the committee begins work next year to reauthorize the Higher Education Authorization Act (PL 110-315). 

In updating that law, Foxx said in an interview with CQ, she wants to give potential students more information about colleges and universities than what’s now available on the Education Department’s College Scorecard. Additional information, she said, could include costs for books and fees in addition to tuition, as well as how long it takes graduates to find work.

“We have to give parents and students lots and lots of information about the cost of going to college, the results of going to a certain college or a university, all that we can possibly do to provide information,” she said. “We have mounds of data and not a whole lot of information.” 

Foxx also wants to expand data collected to include information on more types of students. Most of the department's data is about full-time students who are enrolled in college for the first time. She sponsored a bill (HR 3178) that would require collection of data on all postsecondary students, including part-time students, Pell Grant recipients and students who have transferred. 

The bill was passed by the House in July, along with a number of other higher education bills that could eventually be part of the larger higher education reauthorization.

Despite her push for an increase in transparency, Foxx said she does not approve of an Obama administration rule meant to help students determine whether a program is likely to lead to a job that pays them enough to repay their education loans. The so-called gainful employment rule requires that for-profit schools and certificate programs at nonprofit schools ensure their graduates don’t end up using more than 8 percent of their total income to make education loan payments. The rule went into effect last July, but data for colleges won’t be available until January 2017.

A defender of for-profit schools, Foxx said that rule and other actions by the Education Department have been unfair in their treatment of the industry. The department has been cracking down on for-profit schools after several investigations and thousands of student complaints about aggressive recruitment tactics, poor quality of education and difficulty finding jobs in their field.

Students Harmed

Foxx argues that those same students are hurt when for-profits are forced to close, leaving them scrambling to transfer credits and apply elsewhere to finish their degrees. She also has raised concerns that the department moved too quickly to penalize schools such as Corinthian Colleges, which closed last year, and ITT Tech, which closed last week.

“Whether there was something wrong I don’t think has played itself out yet,” she said in regard to Corinthian.

Although the department has offered students a way to have their federal loans forgiven, Foxx says the loans are just one concern. When schools close, she noted, students must also be able to transfer credits toward the degrees they are attempting to earn.

“There have been a couple of instances where the department has created unnecessary grief not just for the entity but the students involved,” she said. “I don’t think they give any thought to the fact they’re going to harm the lives of the students.”

For-profit schools have been top political contributors to Foxx. In 2014, top donors to her campaign committee were two for-profit schools: Full Sail University and Corinthian Colleges Inc., according to opensecrets.org. Corinthian’s donations to Foxx came as the school withered under scrutiny from the Education Department.

Foxx said donors know they are signing on to her agenda, not vice versa. 

“I supported for-profit institutions before I ever came here,” she said. “I support diversity in higher education. I support proprietary schools, I support not-for-profit schools, I support public schools, I support them all. I think we need all of them.”

Foxx added that she had heard no complaints from her constituents about for-profit schools. 

Under Foxx, the committee would follow Kline in pressing the Education Department to roll out rules to implement the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (PL 114-95), the education law reauthorized last year, in accordance with congressional intent. Republican members of Congress have raised objections to a number of proposed rules from the department, saying they go beyond the intent of Congress.

“I’m really proud of what we did in WIOA,” she said, referencing the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (PL 113-128), which helps fund programs to teach workers skills in numerous industries. “That took a long time, two years, for them to roll out the rules and regulations because we and our staff stayed on top of the department and kept pushing back against their coming up with rules that didn’t comply with congressional intent.”

Foxx was an educator in North Carolina before her election to Congress in 2004. She taught at Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute in 1972 and Appalachian State University from 1973 to 1987. She was president of Mayland Community College in North Carolina from 1987 to 1994.

“Given her background and experience as a vocal advocate for higher education issues, she brings to it something Congressman Kline did not have, which is practical experience,” said Mary Kusler, director of government relations for the National Education Association, the largest teachers’ union in the United States.

Foxx is also one of the few Republican women in Congress with enough seniority to become a full committee chairwoman. The only woman heading a full committee in the current Congress is Homeland Security Chairwoman Candice S. Miller of Michigan, who is retiring. Foxx would also be the first woman to chair the Education and the Workforce Committee. 

While many efforts have focused on electing more women to Congress, it’s also important for women to hold leadership positions in the chamber, said Kelly Dittmar, an assistant professor of political science at Rutgers University and a scholar in the university's Center for American Women in Politics.

“We talk about women’s political progress, but we want to make sure once they’re in Congress they continue gaining power,” she said. “They bring their experiences as women to the table, and that matters.”

http://www.cq.com/doc/news-4955547?7