By Ginika Igboke
The Trump administration on Monday unveiled a public online portal that allows Americans to see how much foreign money is flowing to U.S. colleges and universities.
The new “Foreign Gift and Contract” transparency dashboard tracks more than $62 billion in donations and contracts provided to American institutions of higher education by foreign governments and entities.
According to the database, Qatar is the largest foreign contributor, with $6.6 billion in funding, followed by Germany at $4.4 billion and England at $4.3 billion. China ranks as the fourth-largest contributor with more than $4 billion in reported donations, but when combined with contributions from Hong Kong, the total exceeds $6 billion.
New York University, Harvard University, and Stanford University were the top recipients of funding from China, while Harvard, Yale, and Stanford received the most money from Hong Kong.
Harvard University, which received the highest overall amount of foreign funding—$4.08 billion—took in a combined $590 million from China and Hong Kong, according to the dashboard. The university did not respond to a request for comment on the funding.
Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Select Committee on China, said the portal brings much-needed transparency to foreign financial influence on U.S. campuses.
“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. His committee released multiple investigations last year examining research security and foreign influence at American universities.
The dashboard reflects all foreign funding data submitted to the U.S. Department of Education as of Jan. 31, 2025.
The Trump administration had attempted to establish a similar public disclosure system during Trump’s first term, but federal officials said reporting requirements were not enforced under the Biden administration, limiting oversight of potential foreign influence at U.S. colleges and universities.
Officials said the new system includes improved features such as bulk uploading of foreign funding disclosures, enhanced transparency for the public, and additional compliance tools for institutions.
“The new portal will assist our institutions of higher education in fulfilling their statutory responsibilities and enable us to protect our national security by facilitating improved compliance,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement. “America’s taxpayer-funded colleges and universities have both a moral and legal obligation to be fully transparent with the U.S. government and the American people about their foreign financial relationships.”
During his first term, President Donald Trump took several steps aimed at limiting foreign influence on U.S. campuses, including designating China-backed Confucius Institutes as foreign missions and describing them as soft-power tools of the Chinese Communist Party.
In its first week in office, the Biden administration rescinded that designation, reversing Trump’s directive and reducing federal oversight of Confucius Institutes, according to the America First Policy Institute.
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