Taxpayers will finally see which foreign entities fund U.S. universities
FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—The Department of Education will soon require universities to publicly disclose the counterparties of foreign funding, a senior Education Department official told The Daily Signal.
Section 117 of the Higher Education Act requires higher education institutions to report gifts and contracts valued at $250,000 or more to the Department of Education, to make them available for public inspection.
Universities currently report counterparties, their gifters or contractors, to the agency. However, the identities of foreign counterparties are not made public, which the senior department official said violates the law. The totals received from counterparties of concern are listed in the Section 117 Foreign Gift & Contract Reporting portal, but the gifters’ identities are not named.
“The law is very clear,” the official said. “It says that the Department of Education has to make available for public inspection the reports submitted by the universities. We’re not doing that right now.”
Naming the counterparties will reveal to the public if universities are funded by concerning entities, the official argued.
“It’s appropriate for them to have to be transparent with the American people, with Congress, with the media,” the official said.
Currently, even members of Congress don’t have access to the identities of counterparties of concern.
The Education Department is following the rulemaking process, providing notice to universities and allowing for public comment on the new requirement. The department plans to make the counterparty information available for public inspection by early to mid-summer.
“That’s the part the universities do not want to see happen,” the official said. “They’ve spent years trying to make it not happen.”
Previous administrations allowed universities to mark certain funding sources on their records as exempt from disclosure in public records requests.
“The department, for years, has actually provided a way for universities to not disclose this information to the public,” the official said. “We’re done with that business. We’re not doing that. The law says we have to make available these records for public inspection. We’re going to do it.”
Harvard University receives the most from counterparties of concern—$634 million—according to the agency’s portal. Almost all of the gifts and contracts came from counterparties in China.
One of the premier research universities in the United States received more than $7 million from counterparties of concern in China that also appeared on a U.S. government watch list.
“The American people have every right to know that,” the official said.
The Section 117 Foreign Gift & Contract Reporting portal, which launched Jan. 2, had a record-breaking number of submissions in the last reporting period. The Biden administration did not prioritize enforcing Section 117 or monitoring potential foreign influence at American universities, an agency official said.
On Friday, the department updated the portal to include an additional $4.5 billion in gifts and contracts from Dec. 17, 2025, to Jan. 31, 2026. The total amount of disclosed funding increased by approximately $4.5 billion, from $67.6 billion to $72.1 billion.
“Under Secretary [Linda] McMahon, we’ve made a lot of progress in a very short period of time,” the senior official said. “Universities know that we’re serious about this. We’re consistently telling them that this is very important. We’ve made it a lot easier, through the new reporting portal for them to provide these reports, and we’re going to make more information available on counterparties for the American people.”
“In the most recent reporting period, there was at least $11 million that came in from counterparties that are directly affiliated with various counterparties of concern that appear on U.S. government lists,” the senior official said.
Universities are “on notice” about their foreign funding sources, the official said.
“Most of them are doing a very good job,” the official said. “Some could do a better job, and they should all prepare for the counterparties they’re interacting with to be made available for the American people to see.”
[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]