The College Fix

Department mandates full disclosure of foreign gifts after millions in funding goes unreported

The Education Department is launching efforts to crack down on foreign financial influence in U.S. higher education, targeting Harvard University and the University of California Berkeley as a first foray.

“[T]he Department initiated a Notice of Investigation and Records Request into the University of California, Berkeley after a review of the university’s foreign funding disclosures to the Department may be incomplete or inaccurate,” a news release from the Education Department states.

The school has previously “acknowledged having failed to report millions of dollars in foreign government funding” and “revealed a fundamental misunderstanding regarding its Section 117 reporting obligations,” it states.

In response, UC Berkeley said it “has been cooperating with federal inquiries regarding 117 reporting issues, and will continue to do so,” the Associated Press reported.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon has directed the Office of General Counsel to resume overseeing foreign gift and contract disclosures under Section 117 of the Higher Education Act, the department stated in its release.

The law requires colleges that get federal funding to report any foreign gifts or contracts worth $250,000 or more each year. During the Biden administration, this task was moved to the Office of Federal Student Aid, which mainly handles financial aid.

“By returning foreign funding disclosure oversight duties to OGC, the Trump Administration has made clear its prioritization of Section 117 enforcement,” the release states.

Additionally, McMahon accused the Biden administration of “turn[ing] a blind eye to colleges and universities’ legal obligations by deprioritizing oversight and allowing foreign gifts to pour onto American campuses.”

The Biden administration did not open any new Section 117 investigations and prematurely closed others while compliance failures ran rampant, she said.

Earlier this month, the Education Department announced a similar probe into Harvard “after a review of the university’s foreign reports revealed incomplete and inaccurate disclosures,” another department news release states.

Harvard must submit a full list of all foreign gifts, grants, and contracts as well as all communications with foreign governments. It must also provide details about foreign students expelled since January 2016 along with their research, and a list of visiting researchers, scholars, students, and faculty linked to foreign governments. Harvard has 30 days to provide this information.

In 2022 and 2023, the university received more than $218 million in foreign funding, The College Fix previously reported.

These investigations are part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to restore donation transparency in higher education. Last week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled “Transparency Regarding Foreign Influence at American Universities,” which strengthens the enforcement of Section 117, The Fix reported.

A fact sheet accompanying the order revealed that American colleges and universities have received $60 billion in foreign gifts and contracts over recent decades. However, only about 300 out of roughly 6,000 U.S. institutions report this foreign funding annually.

Further, a Network Contagion Research Institute report found that U.S. universities received nearly $29 billion in foreign funding from 2021 to 2024, doubling the amount from the previous four years.

UC Berkeley, for example, received $87.5 million from China to fuel a joint venture. However, Berkeley cut ties with China’s Tsinghua University earlier this year.

The joint program with China bypassed reporting requirements, as it was considered a separate legal entity from the universities themselves, Open the Books spokesperson Christopher Neefus previously told The Fix.

MORE: House passes bill to increase transparency on China funding U.S. universities

IMAGE CREDIT AND CAPTION: Harvard University homepage through a magnifying glass; Gil C/Shutterstock

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