$50K threshold for college foreign gift reporting passes House panel

Higher Ed Dive

Natalie Schwartz

February 13, 2025

Dive Brief: 

• The House Committee on Education and Workforce voted Wednesday to advance a bill that would require colleges to report gifts and contracts valued at $50,000 or more from most foreign countries.

• That would lower the requirement from the current threshold of $250,000. Republicans argued that the bill, called the Deterrent Act, is needed to prevent foreign influence in higher education.

• The bill would also lower the reporting threshold to $0 for the “countries of concern” as determined by the U.S. Code or the secretary of education, which include China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. The proposal would bar colleges from entering into contracts with those countries unless the secretary of education issues them a waiver and renews it each year.

Dive Insight: 

The Deterrent Act would amend Section 117 of the Higher Education Act, which oversees foreign gift and contract reporting requirements for colleges. Republicans on the education committee argued the measure is needed to provide more transparency.

A fact sheet on the bill included concerns about foreign adversaries stealing secrets from American universities and influencing student behavior.

The fact sheet also referenced a 2024 congressional report that accused two high-profile research institutions — University of California, Berkeley and Georgia Institute of Technology — of failing to meet the current reporting requirements through their partnerships with Chinese universities.

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