House Oversight Investigating Underreported Foreign Funding at American Universities By Brittany Bernstein
The House Oversight Committee is seeking information from the Department of Education about foreign funding for U.S. colleges and universities as the committee looks to dig into an investigation that had been throttled by the Biden administration.
In a letter to acting Department of Education Secretary Denise Carter obtained exclusively by National Review, committee chairman James Comer and Representative Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.) note foreign nations have given more than $57 billion to U.S. institutions since 1981 and voice concern that many institutions have failed to make disclosures for funds received under the Biden administration.
Comer and Foxx accuse the Biden administration of having “rolled back investigations into foreign funding in academia that took place in the first Trump Administration.”
The committee is now requesting documents and information regarding the department’s enforcement of reporting requirements; Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965 requires institutions that receive federal financial assistance to biannually file disclosure reports with the Secretary of Education. These reports must disclose “gifts received or contracts executed with a foreign source, valued at $250,000 or more, or if an institution is owned or controlled by a foreign source.”
Just 5 percent of U.S. institutions self-report foreign funding, the letter says. The Department of Education’s Office of the General Counsel wrote in 2020 that “there is very real reason for concern that foreign money buys influence or control over teaching and research.”
Comer and Foxx argue the disclosures are “indispensable” because adversarial governments have targeted U.S. higher education to infiltrate American research projects and influence curricula.
“Section 117 reporting assures transparency and highlights potential foreign influence in U.S. education, but there are significant limitations that must be addressed,” the pair write, pointing to testimony from the former Chief Investigative Counsel of the Department of Education, Paul Moore, who said administrative enforcement and monitoring of reporting has been “uneven at best.”
Comer and Foxx also cite a congressional report from September that detailed the Biden administration’s “abject failure” to enforce reporting requirements.
Under the first Trump administration, the department opened investigations into twelve institutions and uncovered $6.5 billion in previously unreported money. The National Association of Scholars found that reporting compliance was “relatively high” during the Trump administration.
“The rapid return to underreporting during the Biden Administration is concerning,” the group wrote.
Under President Biden, the department shifted enforcement responsibilities from the office of the general counsel to the federal student aid office, which “lacks the capacity to enforce the reporting requirements in a meaningful manner,” Comer and Foxx said.
But even when universities report foreign funding, the disclosures provide limited information. Foundations or other entities affiliated with institutions do not fall under the direct purview of Section 117 reporting requirements, “allowing them to be used as a vehicle for contingent funding, propaganda, and overall malign Influence,” the letter says.
The chairman is now demanding information from the department, including a list of compliance investigations opened since Biden took office in January 2021, “including, but not limited to the names of the institutions under investigation, the amounts received, and what entities affiliated with the institutions may have been involved.”
Comer is also requesting a list of compliance investigations that were closed after Biden took office, as well as information on referrals of Section 117 noncompliant institutions to the attorney general.
Finally, he requests information related to how the office of federal student aid has been tracking institutions’ Section 117 disclosures.
Comments are closed.
