HOUSTON — Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren was back on familiar turf Friday night for a town hall at her alma mater, the University of Houston.

The U.S. senator from Massachusetts attended the university — paying $50 per semester in tuition — and graduated with a degree in speech pathology in 1970. After teaching special education and earning a law degree, she returned to the university to teach law before teaching law at the University of Texas.

“I fell in love" with the University of Houston, Warren told the crowd of roughly 2,000 people packed into a university ballroom and a nearby overflow room. With the Texas flag hanging behind her, she emphasized her connection to the state while weaving together nuggets of policy with tidbits of her life story. Her father suffered a heart attack when she was 12, temporarily preventing him from working, and her mother had to work a minimum wage job to support the family.

Warren, who rushed onto the stage with an introduction by state Rep. Shawn Thierry, D-Houston, largely stuck to her campaign policy staples as she blasted the influence of money in politics.

“Whatever issue brought you here today, if there are decisions to be made in Washington, I guarantee they’ve been influenced by money,” Warren said over the hisses and boos of the lively crowd. “Money, money, money has infected the decision making in Washington.”

She highlighted her plan to increase taxes on individuals making more than $50 million, joking with the crowd that “the first $50 million, you’re good,” and running through a laundry list of things the revenue from the tax could pay for: universal child care for children under 5; universal pre-K; an increase in wages for preschool teachers and child care workers; free tuition for technical, community and four-year colleges; funding for historically black colleges and universities; and student loan forgiveness.

The senator also railed against politicians’ inaction on climate change, the so-called revolving door between Wall Street and Washington and corrupt lobbying practices.

Perhaps the biggest applause of the night, which provoked a hearty “Warren, Warren, Warren” chant from the crowd, came as she called for an end to political gerrymandering, the rollback of “every voter suppression law in this country” and overturning the landmark Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case protecting political spending as a form of free speech.

Fresh from a presidential forum on public education hosted by the National Education Association in Houston earlier in the day in which Warren accused Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos of not doing her job, Warren resurrected her criticism of DeVos at the town hall.

“Betsy DeVos need not apply,” Warren said, repeating the same one-liner she had used earlier at the forum, while laying out her plan to fill the role with a teacher if elected president.

The presidential hopeful then fielded a number of questions from attendees before keeping her campaign tradition of taking selfies with everyone who wanted one.

Warren's return to her old stomping grounds comes as she finds herself climbing in the national polls, fighting U.S. Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Kamala Harris of California for second place behind the front-runner, former Vice President Joe Biden.