Newsweek36%
US Universities Got Over $300M From Sanctioned China Entities 75%
By Didi Kirsten Tatlow60%
7/18/2026, 8:00:00 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 30 faulty reasoning types, including Framing Effect, Anchoring Bias, and Negativity Bias, with Biased Writer Voice as the most egregious example at 19.1% saturation with 159 hits. Analysis detected 1,640 faulty-reasoning hits from 831 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 66.6% and a BS Rank of 75% (5,605 of 21,887 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 74.40% of the article peer group.
Spooked by a decades-long outflow of top Amerian science and technology to adversaries, the Department of Education has disclosed new data on donations to American universities by foreign companies and universities that today are sanctioned by the U.S., including 527 donations from Chinese entities.
A spreadsheet of 697 donations in total, obtained by Newsweek, is titled "Counterparties of Concern" and includes 156 donations to U.S. universities from Chinese technology giant Huawei and its U.S. subsidary FutureWei, totaling $42 million.
Also prominent among donors was the Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT), one China's "Seven Sons of National Defense" military-affiliated universities, which donated more than $49 million.
The data aims to increase transparency in the U.S. and help end influence, as well as technology and knowledge outflow to China, said research security expert Jeffrey Stoff, President of the Center for Research Security & Integrity.
Universities were not disclosing all donations, Stoff told Newsweek.
"They [Department of Education] intend to enforce the reporting rules more aggressively," he said.
The U.S. says China is its main adversary.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping has said that technology is "the main battleground in international strategic competition" and that China will be technologically, economically and militarily preeminent in the world by 2049.
In total, dozens of U.S. universities received $405 million dollars from the now-sanctioned Chinese entities as well as entities in Russia, Serbia and Israel, the data shows, with $309 million coming from China.
Donations from Russia totaled $66 million and mostly went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Spokeswoman Kimberly Allen said that MIT had sent notice to the Russian partner that it was terminating the collaboration following Russia's military attack on Ukraine in 2022.
The data only includes voluntary disclosures made by universities to the department's Section 117 filing, leaving a potential gray area.
It also includes donors that were added to about a dozen sanctions lists after the donations were made, though some donations continued past that point.
Incomplete disclosure by universities makes it difficult to assess the situation with precision.
Newsweek requested comment from the Department of Education but did not hear back.
Knowledge Transfer
The new data highlights an apparently hard-to-eradicate issue in U.S. education: that it has for decades effectively trained its foremost adversary.
Still, in assessing the situation it was important to consider when the sanction designation was made, historian and research security expert Glenn Tiffert of the Hoover Institution told Newsweek.
"The key thing is to make sure that any claims about ties to a counterparty of concern take into account when that counterparty was designated on any relevant list.
Contracts or gifts that ran their course before the date of designation are prime facie ok even if the counterparty in question was subsequently designated," Tiffert said.
According to the list, Stanford University had received 22 donations worth $2.8 million from foreign entities that are now on sanctions lists or that are registered as a Foreign Agent on the government's Foreign Agent Registration Act.
Of these, only one is shown as current, a donation from Huawei for $9,900 that reportedly ends in 2028.
Stanford spokeswoman Angie Davis told Newsweek that the 2028 date reflected a data entry error.
"Stanford adopted a moratorium on Huawei funding in 2018 and implemented it in 2019," Davis said.
The end dates of five other donations worth about $330,000, mostly from the Tencent Charity Foundation but one from Huawei for $89,900, were not shown.
Universities are required by law to report overseas donations of over $250,000.
Tightening Donation Rules
Simultaneously, a bill is moving through Congress to lower the mandatory reporting threshold to $50,000, and potentially to zero in the case of adversary nations such as China.
The Deterrent Act has passed in the lower house but is awaiting approval by the Senate.
Major recipients included Bryant University in Rhode Island, which received $44 million from the Beijing Insitute of Technology, Zhuhai.
The money was earmarked to run until 2064.
A spokesperson for Bryant University told Newsweek that the money was for an "accounting program."
"The program was educational instruction only and never included research activities, federally funded research, defense-related work, technology transfer, or intellectual property development.
The Chinese partner was responsible for financial support, facilities, and administrative operations," said Peter Kerwin.
BIT was added to Commerce's "Entity List" in 2020 due to its close ties to military research.
Following its addition to the Department of Defense's "1286" sanctions list in 2022, the university formally terminated the arrangement in 2024, Kerwin said.
The program would be taught out and finally end in mid-2027.
Many top Chinese universities in Beijing or other inland locations have set up branches in the south of the country, for example in Zhuhai or Shenzhen, and have sought international collaborations from there.
Utah State University (USU) received $5.6 million from BIT but terminated the agreement in 2025, said spokeswoman Amanda DeRito.
The university was "teaching out" any remaining students, she said.
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