National Security and Universities

The Education Department under the Trump administration published a first‑of‑its‑kind 2025 dataset showing U.S. colleges reported more than $5 billion in foreign gifts and contracts, with Qatar alone supplying roughly $1.1 billion (over 20%) and top recipients including Carnegie Mellon, Harvard, MIT and Stanford — while Harvard, NYU and MIT led receipts from “countries of concern” such as China, Russia and Iran. Higher‑education groups like the American Council on Education and the National Association of Scholars agreed federal tracking had been weak and said the new site lacks trend and contextual detail, while universities defended that their research is open and publishable and that they comply with Section 117 reporting.