Foreign Donations Threaten Academic Freedom on College Campuses

Some of the nation’s most prestigious colleges and universities have received donations totaling billions of dollars from adversarial countries such as China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. Many of these donations were not reported as required under federal law and national security experts say the hidden funds often come with a hefty trade off — allowing undue foreign influence to penetrate the education system.

A recent report released by the Department of Education found that a dozen schools, including Georgetown University, Cornell University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, and Yale University, failed to report over $6.5 billion in gifts and contracts the schools received from foreign entities and governments. Most of the donations came from China, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Russia, regimes with questionable track records on human rights.