This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Education launched a dashboard allowing the public to see how much money colleges received from foreign countries.The reporting dashboard shows eye-popping figures.
As of May, 559 colleges and universities had received more than $72 billion in gifts and contracts collectively from 194 countries — the most coming from Qatar, at $8.8 billion, and China, at $6.8 billion, according to the dashboard. It does not say what time period the amounts cover.
However, the Education Department said in a February press release that colleges reported 8,300 foreign funding transactions totaling more than $5.2 billion in 2025.
googletag.display(‘dfp-hybrid1-mobile’)); googletag.pubads().addEventListener(‘slotRenderEnded’, function (event) { var adUnitPath = ‘/3618/highereddive/highereddivehybrid1’; var onProformative = false; if (onProformative && event.slot.getAdUnitPath() === adUnitPath && !event.isEmpty ) { var adUnitPathWithVisibility = adUnitPath + ‘-mobile’; var selector = ‘.pf-comments__ad-wrapper #dfp-hybrid1-mobile’; if (!$(selector).closest(‘.pf-comments__ad-wrapper’).hasClass(‘borders’)) { $(selector).closest(‘.pf-comments__ad-wrapper’).addClass(‘borders’) } } }); } }); }); ]]>
googletag.display(‘dfp-hybrid2-desktop’)); googletag.pubads().addEventListener(‘slotRenderEnded’, function (event) { var adUnitPath = ‘/3618/highereddive/highereddivehybrid2’; var onProformative = false; if (onProformative && event.slot.getAdUnitPath() === adUnitPath && !event.isEmpty ) { var adUnitPathWithVisibility = adUnitPath + ‘-desktop’; var selector = ‘.pf-comments__ad-wrapper #dfp-hybrid2-desktop’; if (!$(selector).closest(‘.pf-comments__ad-wrapper’).hasClass(‘borders’)) { $(selector).closest(‘.pf-comments__ad-wrapper’).addClass(‘borders’) } } }); } }); }); ]]>
The dashboard tracks disclosures under Section 117,a decades-old law that requires colleges to report contracts and donations from foreign countries worth at least $250,000. The Trump administration, which has made Section 117 compliance a policy priority, says the dashboard is meant to provide more transparency to the public.
But some higher education experts worry it could be used for political purposes and say it lacks key context about the foreign funding that colleges have received. That includes the time frames, and the reasons behind the gifts and contracts, said Sarah Spreitzer, vice president and chief of staff for government relations at the American Council on Education.
The foreign contracts and gifts shown on the dashboard reflect cumulative data — the website doesn’t show users data for specific years, she said.But the dashboard’s presentation implies it covers just a single year of reporting, said Spreitzer.
Moreover, the public isn’t able to see trends in foreign gifts and contracts to colleges because the data cannot be easily sorted by year, she said.
The Education Department, in response to questions from Higher Ed Dive, did not address concerns about the portal lacking data on time frames or the purposes of the gifts or contracts. However, an agency spokesperson said the portal includes disclosures that were reported by universities since 1986, when Section 117 requirements began. The department added that the “vast majority” of the data has been disclosed to the agency since 2019.
googletag.display(‘dfp-hybrid2-mobile’)); googletag.pubads().addEventListener(‘slotRenderEnded’, function (event) { var adUnitPath = ‘/3618/highereddive/highereddivehybrid2’; var onProformative = false; if (onProformative && event.slot.getAdUnitPath() === adUnitPath && !event.isEmpty ) { var adUnitPathWithVisibility = adUnitPath + ‘-mobile’; var selector = ‘.pf-comments__ad-wrapper #dfp-hybrid2-mobile’; if (!$(selector).closest(‘.pf-comments__ad-wrapper’).hasClass(‘borders’)) { $(selector).closest(‘.pf-comments__ad-wrapper’).addClass(‘borders’) } } }); } }); }); ]]>
The dashboard, Spreitzer said, demonstrates that colleges are complying with Section 117 reporting requirements. But she said she worries the Trump administration is trying to send the message that institutions are taking foreign funding wherever it’s available.
“For the purposes of transparency, it would be useful to have some additional context,” said Spreitzer. “The way that the information is presented here is less about transparency and more an attempt to embarrass our institutions.”
The Education Department pushed back on those concerns.
“If an institution is worried that transparency about its foreign funding will cause ‘anxiety’ or ‘embarrass[ment],’ perhaps it should take a closer look at the sources of that funding — not the Department’s enforcement of the law,” the agency said in an emailed statement.
Is key context missing from the Section 117 dashboard?
According to the dashboard, Harvard University received $630 million from China, which the federal government considers a “country of concern” —its designationfor political adversaries.
New York University, along with Stanford and Yale universities, each received more than $400 million from China, according to dashboard data, while the Massachusetts Institute of Technologygot $134.3 million from Russia, another country with the designation.
When announcing the addition of new data to the portal in February, U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the new tool “marks a new era of transparency for the American people and streamlined compliance for colleges and universities, making it easier than ever for institutions to meet their legal obligations.”
The dashboard is an important step in demanding compliance and providing transparency about Section 117 contracts, said Brandy Shufutinsky, education and national security program director atthe Foundation for Defense of Democracies,a conservative research institute.
But the dashboard is drawing concern from other policy experts. Transparency about foreign gifts and contracts is a worthy goal, but the way the Trump administration is presenting the data is problematic, said Jeremy Bauer-Wolf, investigations manager on the higher education program at New America, a left-leaning think tank.
Institutions getting billions of dollars from China could be troubling, but it’s not known what kind of research that money is supporting, Bauer-Wolf added. The missing context around the high figures on the website could therefore incite unwarranted anxiety, he said.
“The administration, in my view, is presenting this data like a scare tactic,” he said.
Additionally, the data shows that some institutions likely overreported their grants and contracts from foreign sources, according to Spreitzer. For instance, Johns Hopkins reported $80 from Iran over two transactions, while Rutgers University reported $1 from the country — far less than the $250,000 reporting threshold, said Spreitzer.
And the dashboard shows universities took money from some banned entities — foreign research institutions and corporations that are subject to U.S. export restrictions. But the dashboard doesn’t provide context on when they entered those contracts, meaning they could have received the money before the restrictions were put in place, she said.
googletag.display(‘dfp-hybrid4-desktop’)); googletag.pubads().addEventListener(‘slotRenderEnded’, function (event) { var adUnitPath = ‘/3618/highereddive/highereddivehybrid4’; var onProformative = false; if (onProformative && event.slot.getAdUnitPath() === adUnitPath && !event.isEmpty ) { var adUnitPathWithVisibility = adUnitPath + ‘-desktop’; var selector = ‘.pf-comments__ad-wrapper #dfp-hybrid4-desktop’; if (!$(selector).closest(‘.pf-comments__ad-wrapper’).hasClass(‘borders’)) { $(selector).closest(‘.pf-comments__ad-wrapper’).addClass(‘borders’) } } }); } }); }); ]]>
Those firms include Huawei, a Chinese technology company that the Trump administration placed on a banned entities list in 2019 due to national security concerns. Institutions haven’t taken any money from that company since 2019, but the way the data is presented implies that universities are still taking money from that banned source, Spreitzer said.
Without such key details being specified, “it’s harder for end users to understand the significance of the data that’s been reported beyond the high-level view of cumulative reported activity,” said Anne Pifer, managing director of research at Huron Consulting Group, which provides risk management and compliance services to higher ed institutions.
“The administration, in my view, is presenting this data like a scare tactic.”
Jeremy Bauer-Wolf
Investigations manager, New America
The missing context could grow in importance as Congress contemplates the issue, said Spreitzer. Senate and House education committees both held hearings about foreign influence on higher ed institutions this past March, she said.
During the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee’s hearing on March 12, Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, the panel’s Republican chair, said foreign funding to American universities can help students and be used to solve complex problems.
But, citing the dashboard’s Section 117 data, he argued foreign adversaries can also use it to influence college campuses and threaten national security.
“We cannot be naive,” said Cassidy. “There are times when the money serves, allegedly, as cover to infiltrate universities to steal research and talent and to foment anti-American ideology.”
Institutions want to comply with the various reporting regulations and be transparent in what they’re reporting, said Spreitzer. But she worries the hearings will message a false idea that universities are not complying and are “randomly taking foreign funding wherever it’s available.”
Trump administration eases reporting process
At the same time, the administration has eased the process for reporting gifts and contracts, as university officials can now upload batches of data into Section 117’s reporting portal instead of entering each grant and contract individually, said Spreitzer. The administration in January also allowed college administrators to save drafts of their contract or gift data reports before submitting them and to self-correct prior submissions on the portal.
Despite the updates, accurately reporting data is still a complex process, Pifer said in an email. It requires significant coordination and verification among multiple university offices and systems responsible for overseeing foreign funding, she said.
“In practice, it’s a difficult requirement to get right because of the interconnected nature of global scholarship and the complexity of compiling accurate data,” Pifer said in an email.
Trump administration ramps up Section 117 investigations
Section 117 came about four decades ago as part of the 1986 Higher Education Act reauthorization.
But the law was never fully implemented by the Education Department and largely forgotten for years, Spreitzer said during an interview last year.
In 2018, however, then-FBI Director Christopher Wraytestified before a Senate committee that China was exploiting the open research and development environment in the U.S. After the hearing, the Trump administration started enforcing compliance with Section 117 through investigations — opening probes against prominent institutions, including Harvard University,Georgetown University,Cornell University, MIT and the University of Maryland between 2019 and 2021.
A political ping-pong ensured. The Biden administration closed many of the Section 117 investigations that were opened during President Donald Trump’s first term, including probes against Case Western Reserve University,Fordham University,University of New Mexico and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
The Education Department, in its statement, alleged that the Biden administration did not “meaningfully update” the Section 117 reporting portal that was launched under the first Trump administration or “make it a priority to enforce Section 117, as required by law.”The department also said the Biden administration didn’t open any new investigations and closed “ongoing investigations prematurely.”
“There are times when the money serves, allegedly, as cover to infiltrate universities to steal research and talent and to foment anti-American ideology.”
Bill Cassidy
Louisiana senator
In April 2025, Trump signed an executive order charging the U.S. education secretary to work with other federal agencies to open Section 117 investigations and enforce the law.
Trump’s order tied compliance with the law to federal grant funding eligibility and, for the first time, the False Claims Act, which penalizes people who knowingly submit false claims to the government.
Since 2025, the Education Department has opened four Section 117 investigations — including another probe into Harvard University.
In its April 2025 letter to Harvard, the agencysaid it needed to verify whether the institution was complying with the law as well as a 2024 agreement that ended the initial investigation during Trump’s first term. The other investigations were launched into the University of Pennsylvania, the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Michigan.
Who oversees Section 117?
The Education and State departments announced in February a new interagency agreement in which State will support oversight of Section 117. The agencies said the partnership would inject additional expertise into enforcement and allow potential threats to be addressed “decisively and proactively.”
The interagency agreement “strengthens transparency around foreign funding in American higher education, helping protect U.S. students, research institutions, and critical technologies from foreign influence,” a State Department spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
The records collected under Section 117 “help safeguard taxpayer-funded research, prevent the transfer of sensitive technologies to foreign entities of concern, and identify potential foreign influence efforts on U.S. campuses,” the spokesperson said.
In Shufutinsky’s view, the interagency agreement will help monitor “malign influence from bad actors who seek to use our education system to damage U.S. national security.”
“The way that the information is presented here is less about transparency and more an attempt to embarrass our institutions.”
Sarah Spreitzer
Vice president and chief of staff for government relations, American Council on Education.
Given the Trump administration’s focus on national security, the interagency coordination suggests federal officials may pay more attention and more heavily enforce Section 117, said Pifer.
It could also push the issue into the hands of political appointees at the State Department who may want to apply pressure on an institution that they don’t like for partnering with a particular country, said Bauer-Wolf.
State Department officials “are people who are not steeped in education, but rather have axes to grind,” Bauer-Wolf said.
Bauer-Wolf gave the example of State Department officials investigating a college if a faculty member makes a statement the administration doesn’t like or to pressure a university to rollback a DEI program, he said.
“This scenario can happen if Section 117 still lived with the Education Department,” said Bauer-Wolf. “But I think it creates greater risks when you’re handing over something highly specialized like this to folks with little to no experience in this area, just an axe to grind.”
Bauer-Wolf said his fears are based on the Trump administration’s past actions that have targeted higher education institutions in different ways — from cuts to scientific research to anti-diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
“There’s a lot of personal interest politics wrapped up in this administration right now that I absolutely worry could bleed down into Section 117 investigations,” said Bauer-Wolf.
Is Section 117 enforcement affecting international student admissions?
The Trump administration, during its Section 117 investigations, has tried to collect information beyond foreign contracts and gifts. As part of its latest investigation, the Education Department asked Harvard for information regarding foreign students who were expelled, as well as the funding sources for any research they conducted. The department also requested a list of scholars, students and faculty members “who were from or affiliated with foreign governments.”
When the Education Department opened a Section 117 investigation into Penn last year, it asked for tax records since 2017, as well as the names of contractors or staff who assisted international students with their visas, work permits or travel.
The State Department worked with the Education Department during Trump’s first term to “address foreign influence operations on U.S. campuses,” the spokesperson stated. The new interagency agreement expands that collaboration by giving the State Department more access to Section 117 foreign funding records, the spokesperson stated.
Access to those records helps the agency “identify potential efforts by foreign entities of concern to access taxpayer-funded research and development, influence academic programs and curricula, or monitor and suppress the free expression of international students studying in the United States,” the State Department added.
In announcing the interagency agreement, the State Department in fact said it has expertise in international student admissions.
And, Shufutinsky said, vetting and monitoring student visa applications can be helpful in scrutinizing foreign gifts to universities.
However, Spreitzer said it’s unclear whether State’s expertise in academic admissions refers to vetting student visas.
“I’m trying to understand how student visa data may be related to Section 117,” said Spreitzer.
Editor’s note: Jeremy Bauer-Wolf previously worked as a journalist for Higher Ed Dive between 2019 and 2023.