Louisiana Republican U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy talks with reporters in the Dirksen Senate office building on Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — Members of a U.S. Senate panel expressed bipartisan consensus Thursday that the country should be cautious of “malign” foreign dollars flowing to American colleges and universities, with some Democrats also arguing recent funding cuts undermine the country’s lead in global research.
The hearing in the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on “malign foreign influence in higher education” came as President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans have pushed for increased transparency requirements when it comes to foreign gifts and contracts entering these schools.
Higher education institutions receiving federal financial assistance are required to disclose any foreign gifts or contracts valued at or above $250,000 annually. The requirement has been in place since 1986, when the Higher Education Act of 1965 was amended to include the reporting provision, known as Section 117.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican and chair of the panel, said college is ultimately “about setting students up for success and they should be our priority, but that priority can be undermined when foreign adversaries attempt to exercise influence on college campuses … inherently threatening national security.”
A bill that would broaden Section 117 disclosure requirements and lower the reporting threshold from $250,000 to $50,000 passed the House in March 2025. Rep. Michael Baumgartner, a Washington state Republican, sponsored the measure.
Cassidy, who is co-leading a Senate companion bill with North Carolina GOP Sen. Thom Tillis, called for protecting college campuses through “transparency,” noting that his legislation would be the next step in that effort.
Thursday’s hearing also came as the administration continues its efforts to dismantle the 46-year-old Education Department, including through a series of interagency agreements that outsource several of its responsibilities to other departments.
In one of those agreements, the State Department will help Education manage foreign gift and contract reporting under Section 117.
Research cuts add vulnerabilities
Though Democrats saw a need to root out “malign” foreign influences in higher education, a handful took aim at the administration’s cuts to federal research funding and broader “attacks” on higher education.
“While I agree that it’s important to stamp out dangerous sources of foreign influence in our higher education system, I think it’s important that we also address how cuts to research funding can increase foreign influence on the global stage and undermine U.S. competitiveness,” said Sen. Angela Alsobrooks.
The Maryland Democrat pointed to the impact of the administration’s cuts to the National Institutes of Health, the country’s premier medical research agency under the Department of Health and Human Services that is headquartered in her state.
Sen. Tim Kaine pointed to a loss of researchers in the United States as a result of research funding cuts.
“This administration has canceled billions of dollars in federal research, making many of our researchers vulnerable to being recruited by universities in other countries, not necessarily China, but Canada, the (United Kingdom) and universities in Europe,” the Virginia Democrat said.
Sen. Patty Murray said she found it “absurd” that Trump and Republicans are “willing to burn billions of dollars a day” in the ongoing war with Iran, when she and many others are fighting “tooth and nail” to get the administration to “release billions of dollars that Congress appropriated to be delivered to our students.”
“It’s not happening, and states like mine are having to routinely file lawsuits,” the Washington state Democrat said, while also calling on Education Secretary Linda McMahon to testify before the panel on the ongoing dismantling efforts.
Cassidy said the panel was in talks with the department to schedule McMahon’s testimony.
Transparency dashboard
The department’s public transparency dashboard — housed on a portal launched in January where colleges and universities are responsible for disclosing foreign gifts and contracts — also came to the forefront during Thursday’s hearing.
The dashboard, visualizing four decades of data, offers a snapshot of the foreign funding disclosures submitted by colleges and universities.
At least 559 institutions have disclosed $72.1 billion in foreign gifts and contracts between 1986 and late January 2026, according to the dashboard.
But the current version of the dashboard’s usability is limited by an inability to filter by year.
Robert Daly, senior fellow at the Asia Society and former director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Wilson Center, told the panel the dashboard’s cumulative nature is one of its “biggest silences.” The tool does not allow the public to see any fluctuation over the years in the amount of money in foreign gifts and contracts received by schools.
He added that “not only do we need to see how giving from each country is moving over time, we need to be able to distinguish different kinds of giving.”
