House Education chair talks oversight, blocking student loan forgiveness

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), the new chairwoman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, highlighted her concerns about the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness plan, promising increased oversight Thursday.

During an “On the Record” interview with The Hill’s Bob Cusack, Foxx said she’s looking to the Supreme Court to block the student loan forgiveness plan, which Foxx called “totally illegal.”

“The Biden administration does not have the authority under the bill that they’re using to forgive what could amount to as much as a trillion dollars in loans,” she said. “The Democrats always talk about fairness, fairness, fairness. Well, that is not fair in my book.”

Addressing school expenses, Foxx said she hopes to investigate the rising costs of higher education as she settles into her new role, as well as to find ways to change the amount that universities charge students.

“We certainly want to hold them accountable for how they, again, are spending hard working taxpayers’ dollars,” Foxx said. 

Foxx has served as the top Republican on the House Education and Workforce Committee since 2017 and was selected to chair the committee on Jan. 9.

Republicans recently rebranded the committee, which was previously known as the Committee on Education and Labor. Foxx said in January that the new term “workforce” would include “all the people in this country who make a living.”

As part of her goal to practice “tremendous oversight” as chairwoman, Foxx pledged to subpoena Biden administration officials from at least four departments.

“And we’ll be asking them to come down to explain actions or inactions on their part,” Foxx said. 

She added that there was minimal cooperation from the administration during the 117th Congress.

“I think we can subpoena them if they don’t come down and talk. We can subpoena information, we can hold depositions, there are a lot of things that we can do now to gather information,” Foxx said. “In Congress, I mean, in Washington, for the last two years, there’s been no accountability. Zero.”