MIT took $80 million. The Skolkovo Foundation — a Russian entity on federal watchlists — wrote $51 million in checks to American universities. Beijing Institute of Technology kicked in another $44 million. Air China contributed $33 million. All told, 697 separate transactions from what the federal government classifies as "Counterparties of Concern."
Total haul: more than $300 million. Sixty-seven American universities took money from foreign entities that the U.S. government has flagged as national security threats.
The numbers come from federal disclosure filings required under the Higher Education Act of 1965 — a law that mandates universities report foreign gifts and contracts exceeding $250,000. The actual figure across all flagged foreign sources hit $380 million, with $300 million-plus coming specifically from watchlisted entities: organizations and governments that exist on federal concern lists for a reason.
MIT led the pack at $80 million in total foreign receipts from these sources. UC Berkeley pulled in nearly $27 million, including more than $7 million from Sun Yat-sen University in China. The University of Arizona, University of North Dakota, and Texas A&M round out the recipient list. Sixty-seven schools in total.
Angela Morabito, a spokesperson for the Defense of Freedom Institute and former U.S. Department of Education press secretary, was direct: "College leaders should know where every dollar is going, especially when those dollars come from hostile foreign powers. Academic freedom and national security cannot be afterthoughts considered only after the check clears."
UC Berkeley's response was instructive. Dan Mogulof, Assistant Vice Chancellor at Berkeley, stated that "UC Berkeley complies with all of the statutes and regulations" and that the university "does not accept restrictions on the freedom to publish" when taking extramural research support. Translation: we followed the paperwork rules, so stop asking questions.
Compliance with a reporting threshold is not the same as due diligence on where the money originates. A university can file every disclosure form on time and still be funneling research access to entities the Defense Department considers adversarial. The $250,000 reporting floor means smaller transactions fly under the radar entirely.
The Trump administration moved on this in April 2025 with an executive order targeting foreign influence in higher education. The DETERRENT Act, which Morabito said "would strengthen reporting requirements and penalize institutions that aren't honest," remains the legislative vehicle. An executive order exists. The legislation is pending. And sixty-seven universities kept cashing the checks.
Here's what $300 million buys. It buys access to research labs developing technologies with dual-use military applications. It buys relationships with faculty who shape the next generation of engineers, scientists, and policy analysts. It buys a footprint inside institutions that train the people who end up at the Pentagon, the State Department, and the intelligence community. Russia and China aren't donating to American higher education out of philanthropic generosity.
Tuition keeps climbing. Student debt keeps compounding. And sixty-seven universities exposed by their own federal filings were quietly depositing checks from the same governments we spend $886 billion a year in defense spending to deter.
The $250,000 reporting threshold has been the law since 1965. Sixty-one years of filings, and it took this long for anyone to cross-reference the donor list with the watchlist.
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