Rep. Foxx Attacks Pell Grants, Defends For-Profit Waste
Today Diverse: Issues in Higher Education has an interview with Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), the incoming chairperson of the House Education Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training, which is responsible for oversight of for-profit schools.
In the interview, Foxx said, “In terms of the role of the federal government in education, and higher education in particular, I think we want to look at how much money is being spent at the federal level and for what benefits. … We have a huge federal bureaucracy and that’s one of the things that I think our committee needs to look at.”
Though Foxx says the solution should lie in states filling in instead of the federal government on education (though with states so cash strapped these days, it’s unclear exactly how states might do that), she also opposes recent “gainful employment” regulation proposed by the Department of Education that would step up accountability of for-profit schools that have increasingly high default rates. She joined with Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.) to introduce an amendment to the House’s budget continuing resolution that stripped funding for enforcement of the rule, even though it hasn’t yet been implemented. The resolution has passed in the house, but its prospects in the Senate are uncertain.
In the interview, Foxx said she thought the rule “unfairly targets” for-profit schools and that the rule should be applied to all schools. (In fact, the rule covers all career college programs and thus applies to more public and non-profit programs than for-profit programs.) Some, like Adam Serwer at The American Prospect, have called for-profit schools “real-life welfare queens,” saying they subsist on government subsides. “Even people generally opposed to government regulation should agree that if the government is going to spend taxpayer money to help people get an education, it should actually make sure that it goes to institutions that educate people rather than mire them in debt,” Serwer wrote.
But when Foxx was asked about potential cuts to the Pell grant, which gives money to the lowest-income students to make higher education more affordable, “I don’t think it’s appropriate for us to say any program is off the table.”
As Pro Publica reported recently, Foxx has received at least $2,750 in campaign contributions in the last two years from for-profit colleges and universities or their employees. (Kline has received more than $33,600.) Foxx questions federal spending on education, including on the Pell grant, but when it comes to ensuring that such spending actually helps students, she wants everyone to look the other way.
Kay Steiger is the editor of CampusProgress.org.
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