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Some of our President’s higher education policies have always been questioned by a North Carolina conservative Republican, US Rep. Virginia Foxx. She made an announcement that she will be leading the higher education subcommittee at the 112th Congress.

She was enthusiastic about the opportunity and said she is hugely excited with the opportunity to steward taxpayer dollars even while making higher education better. Rep. Foxx is a former community college professor and president who said in a recent interview that she did not have a specific agenda yet.

Reiterating that she would not be protecting higher education from spending cuts, she expressed doubts over the feasibility of President’s Obama’s urging to produce five million graduates from community colleges by 2020.

She said that a program that cannot prove its worth needs to be re-examined and higher education must never shy away from accountability. She went on to say that accountability is inevitable wherever taxpayer dollars are involved.

When questioned about she said that she was curious to find out the claim behind our President’s ambitious plan of graduating five million people. She also said that most of the time it is important for people to gain certification and learn skills and it was not really prudent measuring community college success through graduation.

She also criticized the student loan law that ended bank based programs and navigated to direct lending where the Department of Education lends loans to students directly. According to her, this eliminated competition, choice and innovation.

She may lead the efforts of Republicans in overturning or even blocking recent rules that could impact the for-profit colleges. The controversial gainful employment rule that axed student aid to programs where graduates have low loan repayment rates and high debt relative to income will also come under scrutiny.

Ms. Foxx has always favored the for-profit colleges and the private sector association president Harris N. Miller welcomed her appointment. She has also done a lot for her state’s military population garnering support for tuition benefits for veterans.

American Council on Education president Molly Corbett Board said that Representative Foxx’s appointment opened up an opportunity for streamlining the impractical regulations. She described the Congresswoman as being open, accessible and direct in expressing views.

She is also known for opposing creation of unit record system to track educational progress of individual students apart from being supportive to community colleges. With a reputation for being outspoken, Ms. Foxx is famous for her controversial statements.

Ms. Foxx is from a poor family that lived in the Appalachian Mountains. She says that her success depended on her education. After working for years as a professor and spending at least ten years in the North Carolina Senate, Ms. Foxx was elected in the year 2004 to the Congress.

She has also administered several colleges in North Carolina including the Mayland Community College, Caldwell Community College and Appalachian State University. The year 2005 saw her joining the education committee from where she moved on in 2008 to the powerful rules committee. She returned to the education committee with her appointment to lead the panel.