By Esther Wickham
The Center Square

American colleges and universities have received $5.2 billion in foreign gifts and contracts in 2025, according to data from the U.S. Department of Education.

The department released data compiled from foreign funding disclosures submitted by American colleges and universities, documenting over 8,300 transactions worth more than $5.2 billion in reportable foreign gifts and contracts.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the disclosures provide “unprecedented visibility” into foreign funding, including from countries that may pose national security risks.

Under Section 117 of the Higher Education Act, colleges must disclose foreign gifts or contracts exceeding $250,000. Republicans have long argued that some institutions don’t report such funding and have called for stricter oversight.

Qatar was the largest source of foreign funding in 2025, accounting for about $1.1 billion. Other top sources included the United Kingdom, China, Switzerland and Japan.

The website also highlights funding from what McMahon called “countries of concern,” including China, Russia and Iran. Harvard, Carnegie Mellon University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology received the most money from those countries.

Between 1986 and 2025, Harvard received more foreign funding than any of the 555 institutions reporting data to the Education Department, totaling about $610 million.

“MIT research on campus, regardless of funding source, is open and publishable, with the results available to scientists worldwide and not only in a particular country or countries,” a MIT spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed. “We follow all federal laws in accepting and reporting any such gifts or contracts.”

The released data is part of the Trump administration’s broader effort to reshape higher education and increase scrutiny of foreign influence on college campuses.

In April 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled “Transparency Regarding Foreign Influence at American Universities,” calling for an end to secrecy around foreign funding and stronger safeguards against foreign exploitation of U.S. research and students.

Student journalists at Stanford University, which has received more than $775 million in foreign funding, have reported on what they describe as growing influence by the Chinese Communist Party on the campus near San Francisco.

“The CCP is orchestrating a widespread intelligence-gathering campaign at Stanford,” a Stanford Review article said. “In short, there are Chinese spies at Stanford.”

Since the start of Trump’s second term, the administration has also investigated other universities, including Harvard and the University of California, Berkeley, over alleged undeclared foreign funds.

The Center Square reached out to Harvard, Carnegie Mellon University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a comment but has not received a response.