EDUCATION DEPARTMENT SCRUTINIZES FOREIGN FUNDING TO U.S. CAMPUSES: The Trump administration is stepping up scrutiny of foreign gifts and contracts that flow to U.S. colleges and universities, warning campus officials that they need to more fully report such arrangements to the government.
— Education Department officials in recent weeks have opened investigations into at least four large universities over alleged failures to properly report foreign funding: Georgetown University, Texas A&M University, Cornell University and Rutgers.
— And the Trump administration has signaled that it’s planning additional steps to beef up enforcement of federal rules governing foreign gifts to colleges. For instance, department officials are considering publishing a notice declaring that colleges’ compliance with the foreign gift reporting requirement “is in the national security interest of the United States,” according to a July 3 letter sent by Deputy Education Secretary Mick Zais.
— Zais also said that the department may make colleges’ compliance with foreign gift reporting rules a new condition for some discretionary grants that the agency doles out.