Higher Ed’s Secret Foreign Funding

Excerpt The Trump administration has made university accountability a signature issue, from combating discrimination to exposing foreign influence on campus. Now the higher-education lobby is trying to block the release of major foreign-donor names. The administration shouldn’t give in. Universities receiving federal funds have been required by law since 1986 to report foreign gifts and contracts totaling $250,000 or more annually. They haven’t always done so. The first Trump administration uncovered nearly $6.5 billion in foreign gifts and contracts universities failed to disclose. The Biden administration failed to open any foreign-funding investigations, according to a September 2024 report from the House Select Committee on China. The second Trump administration restored enforcement and launched a public dashboard for reported foreign funding. Mr. Singleton is senior director of the China Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.