With a new tool publicizing foreign funding to U.S. universities, the Trump administration has fulfilled an early promise to end secrecy around contributions from other governments and to ramp up public scrutiny of such contributions.

The data show that the top ten contributors provided nearly $63 billion in foreign funding to higher education institutions. Several of these governments are close U.S. allies and partners, including the United Kingdom, Germany and Japan. 

Problematic contributions

Contributions from other governments, including the Middle Eastern monarchy of Qatar and China — through the mainland and Hong Kong governments — have each raised significant concerns in the past about how these governments may be influencing public opinion through their contributions or seeking to transfer sensitive research. 

In a late April executive order, President Donald Trump promised to “end the secrecy” in foreign funding to U.S. colleges and universities, ending what the administration viewed as a lax approach by its predecessor. 

Database now details foreign government contributions and their U.S. university recipients

Trump said in the order that “it is the policy of my Administration to end the secrecy surrounding foreign funds in American educational institutions, protect the marketplace of ideas from propaganda sponsored by foreign governments, and safeguard America’s students and research from foreign exploitation.”

The president ordered Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Attorney General Pam Bondi to enforce the federal laws surrounding the disclosure of foreign funding on U.S. campuses after Biden Education Secretary Miguel Cardona de-prioritized the issue over the previous four years, as Just the News previously reported. 

The new Department of Education database fulfills the first part of that two-part promise. Released on Monday, the database gives a breakdown of the foreign government contributions and U.S. university recipients. 

With $62.4 billion in total contributions, the top four contributors include the Emirate of Qatar, which has spent $6.6 billion, Germany, which has spent $4.4 billion, the United Kingdom, which has spent $4.3 billion, and China, which has spent $4.1 billion. 

China sent nearly $6 billion to US universities in order to access research, influence opinion

When the $1.9 billion in contributions from Chinese-controlled Hong Kong is added, China jumps to the second-place contributor at a total of $6 billion.  

Under Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965, universities are required to disclose “any gifts from and contracts with a foreign source that, alone or combined, are valued at $250,000 or more in a calendar year,” per the Department of Education. 

The law went largely unenforced for years until the first Trump administration forced numerous institutions to amend their disclosures, Just the News previously reported. 

The Education Department under Biden backed off the program and said in 2022 that it was transitioning primary responsibilities for rule enforcement away from the Office of General Counsel (OGC) to the Office of Federal Student Aid. An internal inspector general report later found that the FSA’s monitoring was insufficient. 

The Chairman of the House Select Committee on China, John Moolenaar, R-Mich., praised the decision to create the database and highlighted the threat that Chinese funding poses to the United States university system, which his committee has long documented.

“Secretary McMahon and the Trump administration have done tremendous work to bring transparency to our universities. Through this portal we can all see that China has given nearly $6 billion to our nation’s universities in order to transfer critical research, influence, and academic talent to China,” Moolenaar said in a statement. 

The top recipients of Chinese funding include some of the most prestigious universities in the United States, including Harvard, Stanford, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Many of the schools listed are involved in highly sensitive research and are home to some of the world’s prominent scholars. 

The CCP Select Committee has previously released reports showing how senior U.S. scholars collaborated, whether knowingly or unknowingly, with Chinese scientists affiliated with the Chinese government or military-linked laboratories, as one example of how the Chinese Communist Party co-opted U.S. universities.

House Republicans previously said that Chinese funding to U.S. universities skyrocketed during the Biden administration due to the lax enforcement of the reporting requirements. 

CCP agent impersonated legitimate college student

Stanford, one of the largest recipients of Chinese funding, has long come under scrutiny for such funding. In 2021, Stanford opened a Chinese studies center that hosted "scholars, guests, and programs affiliated with groups backed by the Chinese Communist Party," the Washington Free Beacon reported. 

Last year, The Stanford Review, a student-run paper at the school, produced an investigative series on Chinese Communist Party influence at the California school. 

Last May, the paper reported that “this summer, a CCP agent impersonated a Stanford student” and that “under the alias Charles Chen, he approached several students through social media.” The outlet added “Charles Chen was likely an agent of the Chinese Ministry of State Security, tasked with identifying sympathetic Stanford students and gathering intelligence.” Then, last month, the paper unveiled research ties between a leading American scientist and an entity affiliated with China’s nuclear program. 

Congress has also expressed concern about the presence of Chinese students in advanced research programs receiving federal funding, due to their sensitive nature and possible national security risks.  

In March, Moolenaar sent a letter to the presidents of Carnegie Mellon (CMU), Purdue University, Stanford University, the University of Illinois, the University of Maryland and the University of Southern California (USC) “requesting information on each of their policies and practices regarding the enrollment of Chinese national students in advanced STEM programs, questioning their involvement in federally funded research.” 

Focus now also on Qatar

Qatar has also long engaged in efforts to shape U.S. public opinion and official policy, primarily through extensive lobbying efforts. 

Additionally, experts have drawn a connection between Qatar’s funding for universities and what they describe as increased pro-Palestinian sympathies after generations of staunch U.S. support for Israel, Just the News previously reported. 

"Through these instruments, they have been able to, No. 1, create those ideas and change the minds of students, and as I argued in my book, once you defeat truth in the classroom, it is going to spill over to the newsroom, to the courtroom, to the war room,” Walid Phares, a best-selling author and security expert who has advised Republicans for decades, including former President Donald Trump, told the John Solomon Reports podcast in October 2023. 

Just the News reported in the wake of the murderous October 7, 2023, attacks by the terrorist group Hamas against Israel that student groups at the universities funded by Qatar came out forcefully, blaming Israel for the Hamas terrorist attacks and holding vigils for the victims in Palestine.

Recently, Qatar has undergone a dramatic reversal of fortunes with the United States after helping to mediate the ceasefire in the Gaza war between Israel and Hamas that began after Oct. 7. Previously, the Gulf monarchy for years has walked a tightrope between hardcore Islamicists, Iran and the United States, Just the News reported. 

However, Abdul-Hussain, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, previously told Just the News that, despite Qatar’s recent effort to position itself as a key mediator between the United States and other Middle Eastern countries or groups, the country’s tacit — and some would say open — support of the Muslim Brotherhood could present a diplomatic problem in the future.