Trump Escalates Enforcement of University Foreign Gift Reporting

President Donald Trump pledged last week to increase enforcement of foreign gift reporting requirements for U.S. higher education institutions, threatening to withhold federal funding from those that fail to make appropriate disclosures.

In an executive order on April 23, Trump directed the Department of Education to take “all appropriate actions” to enforce existing federal law requiring U.S. colleges and universities to disclose gifts or contracts from foreign entities worth over $250,000.

The order requires the Department of Education to “reverse any actions by the prior administration that permit higher education institutions to maintain improper secrecy regarding foreign funding” and “hold institutions accountable for failure to comply with the disclosure requirements, including through audits and investigations.”

Enforcement of these federal reporting requirements within the Department of Education will now be handled by the department’s Office of General Counsel, as they were in Trump’s first term in office. During the Biden administration, the Federal Student Aid office was in charge of enforcement.

Several Republican lawmakers have suggested in recent years that the Biden administration was lax in its enforcement of foreign gift reporting requirements. House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) and Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), for example, wrote a letter earlier this year to the Department of Education requesting information on compliance investigations undertaken since 2021, arguing that enforcement of disclosure requirements has been “uneven at best.” Republicans on the House Select Committee on the CCP also accused the Biden administration of failing to enforce reporting of foreign gifts from the Chinese government.

During Trump’s first term, the Department of Education reported that it “catalyzed” the disclosure of $6.5 billion in unreported funds as a result of compliance investigations.

Efforts to strengthen foreign gift reporting requirements have some bipartisan support. Last month, the House passed a bill that would lower the foreign gift reporting threshold from $250,000 to $50,000 in a 241-169 vote, with 31 Democrats voting in support. The bill, known as the DETERRENT Act, is still being reviewed by the Senate.

“Colleges and universities have a legal duty to report foreign gifts and contracts, and, in President Trump’s first term, the Department of Education held them to it,” said Education Secretary Linda McMahon in a statement last week.

“Unfortunately, in the last four years, the Biden administration undermined the structures the president built to do this critical work, allowing nations like China and Qatar to funnel billions of dollars to U.S. universities with little to no oversight,” McMahon said. She added that this “financial infiltration” enabled foreign governments to “steal taxpayer-funded intellectual property” and shape how U.S. institutions “teach about Israel and the Middle East.”

“The Department of Education will ‘follow the money,’ put a stop to malign foreign influence, secure the research enterprise, and restore American campuses to marketplaces of ideas rather than hosts for foreign propaganda,” McMahon said.

The gift-reporting order was part of a wave of education-related orders Trump issued last week focused on reforming college accreditation, reinstating “commonsense” school discipline, increasing apprenticeship opportunities, developing AI education, and supporting historically Black colleges and universities.