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The Trump administration is cracking down on colleges that don’t report big foreign donations, with UC Berkeley the latest target following a Department of Education review of the California university’s foreign funding disclosures found that it "may be incomplete or inaccurate."
Education Secretary Linda McMahon ordered the agency’s legal team on Friday to take back control of enforcing a law that requires schools to disclose foreign gifts or contracts worth $250,000 or more.
"The Biden-Harris Administration turned a blind eye to colleges and universities’ legal obligations by deprioritizing oversight and allowing foreign gifts to pour onto American campuses. Despite widespread compliance failures, no new Section 117 investigations were initiated for four years, and ongoing investigations were closed prematurely," McMahon said in a statement. "I have great confidence in my Office of General Counsel to investigate these matters fully, and they will begin by thoroughly examining UC Berkeley’s apparent failure to fully and accurately disclose significant funding received from foreign sources."
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President Donald Trump signs an executive order to reduce the size and scope of the Education Department alongside school children signing their own versions during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on March 20. (Getty)
The investigation comes amid Trump's growing scrutiny over foreign influence in U.S. higher education.
This week, Trump signed an executive order tightening rules on how colleges report foreign funding, directing the Education Department to undo past policies that let universities "obscure details regarding their foreign funding" and to make schools fully disclose where that money comes from and what it’s for.
The Department of Education said this issue gained attention after reports surfaced in 2023 that Berkeley failed to report hundreds of millions of dollars it received from China.
Prospective students tour the University of California, Berkeley campus before the beginning of the new semester in Berkeley, California, on June 8, 2023. (Reuters/Carlos Barria/File Photo)
In response to a federal inquiry at the time, Berkeley admitted it didn’t report $220 million received and showed it had been building a long-term financial relationship with foreign government-controlled entities, while also "misunderstanding its legal duty to disclose that funding," the department disclosed in a news release.
An Education Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital they initiated a records request into Harvard for foreign funding last week.
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A White House fact sheet this week cited a Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations report showing nearly $60 billion in foreign gifts and contracts have flowed into universities over several decades, often with little oversight. Federal officials say only a fraction of the country’s roughly 6,000 institutions report such funding.
"President Trump is ending secrecy surrounding foreign funding in higher education to protect students, research, and the marketplace of ideas," the fact sheet reads.
Jamie Joseph is a U.S. Politics reporter for Fox News Digital covering transgender and culture issues, the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services, and stateside legislative developments.
