Last week, Sen. Marco Rubio sent letters to 22 university presidents calling on them to end partnerships with Chinese universities that are aiding Beijing’s military technology initiatives.
The problem is real.
Unfortunately, Congress and the public have limited visibility into how college campuses are being exploited. Since 1986, federal law has required postsecondary institutions to disclose foreign contributions to the Department of Education. Universities have since disclosed over $36 billion in gifts and contracts from foreign sources. More recently, between 2014 and 2020, postsecondary institutions disclosed over $16 billion in contributions.
But it’s unclear if this amount is an accurate reflection of the contributions that colleges and universities have received.
A review of the Department of Education’s website reveals significant problems with the three different databases of disclosures. None of these data sets presents a complete picture of foreign contributions. One of the data sets shows contributions dating back to the 1980s, another includes disclosures from 2014 to 2020, and another shows contributions since 2020. One of the databases includes the names of the sources of funds, while the others do not. Each of the data sets is rife with misspellings and contributions labeled as anonymous.
Absent thorough disclosures by colleges and universities, federal investigators, Congress, and the public have limited awareness of the extent to which foreign contributions like those from China are influencing and exploiting our campuses.
Despite the limits of the Department of Education’s databases, data analysis reveals several concerning trends.
From 2014 to 2020, colleges and universities reported $1.2 billion in contributions from China. Out of this $1.2 billion, over $120 million in contributions list a giftee name of “anonymous,” and over $400 million in contributions do not list a giftee name at all. In other words, colleges and universities disclosed nothing about the sources of funds of nearly half of the contributions from China during this period.
Secondly, U.S. colleges and universities have disclosed contributions from companies and organizations that the government has found to pose national security threats. Over $21 million in contributions to various American postsecondary institutions were from Huawei. This is likely only the tip of the iceberg. The 2019 Portman-Carper Senate investigation warned that foreign governments’ contributions to American schools were “effectively a black hole.”
There are reasons for some optimism.
Congress is working to improve transparency about these foreign contributions. The Senate-passed U.S. Innovation and Competition Act and the House-passed America COMPETES ACT would amend the 1986 law to expand the reporting requirement and establish new enforcement mechanisms for the federal government. Specifically, the bills would lower the threshold for disclosures from $250,000 to $50,000, require more information about the sources of funds, and authorize the Department of Education to penalize institutions that fail to comply with the law.
Rubio’s investigation is a worthwhile step to prevent China from using financial means to exploit weaknesses in higher education. But it would surely have a broader reach if colleges and universities had thoroughly disclosed foreign contributions in the first place as required by law.
The people deserve to know more about who funds their universities. Congress should move quickly to improve transparency.
Lars Schonander is a policy technologist at the Lincoln Network.
