CBC Editorial: Wednesday, April 18, 2018; Editorial # 8291
The following is the opinion of Capitol Broadcasting Company

If there’s anyone in Congress who would understand the challenges many students face in paying for a higher education – and the value it adds to our economy and society – it should be North Carolina Rep. Virginia Foxx.

She holds a doctorate in teaching, she taught and was an administrator at a community college and university – including serving as president of Mayland Community College. Many of her innovative initiatives were focused helping students gain access to greater opportunities including on-campus child care and improved counseling and advising.

But it seems that much of her career in Washington has been less about helping those she knows best from her work in North Carolina than it is appeasing the narrow ideological special interests that dominate the nation’s capital.

It is most clear in her championing, as the Republican chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, of the 600-page “Promoting Real Opportunity, Success, And Prosperity Through Education Reform (PROSPER) Act” that reforms and revises the government’s higher education student aid programs.

The bill makes it tougher for many students to get, or repay, loans and is loaded with provisions appealing to narrow interests – including allowing colleges to discriminate or even forbid some social or romantic relationships under the guise of religious liberty.

What it does do, a broad spectrum of high education advocates say, is cutback student loan availability – particularly to graduate students – while also scaling back increased accountability, particularly on for-profit institutions, that was put into place by the Obama administration.

“It would sharply increase the costs of higher education for students and make students and taxpayers more vulnerable to predatory actors and poor performing institutions and programs,” said Peter McPherson, president of the distinctly middle-of-the-road Association of Public and Land-grant Universities.

One concern is that the way the legislation’s crafted will result in greater debt for students and cut back on some aspects of loan forgiveness. For example, it eliminates a provision that now allows borrowers in fulltime public service jobs – military service and public school teachers – to have their loans forgiven after 10 years of making payments.

Keeping student loans affordable is particularly important in North Carolina. While the state ranks 16th in least student debt ($14,822 average per graduate), it ranks 36th in default rate at 12.7 percent. That’s higher than the national average of 11.5 percent.

Seven of the state’s historically black campuses have default rates above the state average with Saint Augustine’s University at 22.5 percent. Fifteen community colleges, including Wake Tech, Durham Tech and Johnston Community College also have default rates above the state average.

Foxx’s bill passed out of committee on a 23-17 party line vote. Among those voting against it was North Carolina Democrat Alma Adams.

While there’s been no full House vote on the bill, the Senate’s education committee has already started discussing the issue. The committee appears to be approaching it in a more bipartisan manner where Republican committee Chair Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and ranking Democrat Sen. Patty Murray have generally had a cooperative working relationship.

We can only hope that the Senate will produce a student aid bill that meets the purpose – to help students get access to the best education they need and help them so they can afford it. Foxx, if anyone, should understand how to do that and hopefully will work with the Senate to make it happen.