Authoritarian states dwarf America’s allies in influencing US colleges and universities

Colleges are geopolitical institutions. Amid general education requirements and a learning environment characterized by racial obsession, antisemitism and an ideologically lopsided professorate, the American college students of today enroll alongside authoritarian foreign powers.

American universities stand out for international openness. Indeed, U.S. colleges are the top worldwide destination for foreign students. Roughly 1 million foreign students attended a U.S. university or college in the 2019-2020 academic year, with over half coming from either China or India. While only constituting around 5 percent of the college student population, tuition from foreign students represents 28 percent of tuition revenues, or $9 billion. Beyond tuition dollars, foreign influence and funding in higher education is deeper and more nefarious than most imagine.

Authoritarian states such as China, Qatar, Russia and others are well-represented in American universities by virtue of the funding they provide. Foreign adversaries, and nations with values antithetical to natural rights and American interests, engage U.S. universities for a range of motives. Foreign-funded language programs, study centers and technology partnerships in science and engineering not only allow foreign states to access technologies vital to developing the American economy, but also endanger national security. Combined, they threaten educational sovereignty.

China is first among the authoritarian governments making their presence known in higher education, having built entire state bureaucracies devoted to managing its influence in universities abroad. In 2017, the National Association of Scholars (NAS) brought China’s Confucius Institutes (CIs) to public light. NAS discovered that China offered U.S. colleges $150,000 to open CIs. These institutes are little more than Beijing-run influence operations backed by funding and prestige. First supported by China’s Ministry of Education through the Chinese Language Council International, CIs were described by the former head of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) propaganda operations as an “important part of China’s overseas propaganda set-up.” Even after suffering a blow to the CI brand, China has replaced most of its CIs with bilateral programs between American colleges and universities in China.

In 2021, with CIs on the decline, China penned $120 million in contracts with American universities. The University of Houston alone secured a $32 million contract to work with China’s Dalian Maritime University in crafting a joint institute, while the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign entered into five agreements worth a combined $26.5 million. The CCP in the Ivy League is well-represented. To the nation’s top universities, China awarded sizable sums: Harvard ($138.77 million), Yale ($87.63 million) and Columbia University ($86.85 million).

While China is the proverbial dragon in American colleges, Middle Eastern monarchies stand alongside Beijing as authoritarian states asserting their influence in higher education. The NAS noted in a 2022 report that Qatar alone donated $4.7 billion to U.S. colleges since 2001. Northwestern University received over $600 million in Qatari funds since 2007, connected to its journalism program in the Gulf. Qatar’s spending on an American journalism program is noteworthy given that the monarchy ranked 119 out of 180 for press freedom in 2022. In Qatar, as in other totalitarian states, journalists can be jailed for a tweet. As the largest Gulf monarchy, Saudi Arabia funneled $650 million to American universities between 2012 and 2018. Like China, the Saudis use American universities to project soft power, obfuscate human rights abuses, and train upcoming professionals.

Russia also is no stranger to the American college quad. From 2014-2020, Russia donated $100 million to U.S. universities. Like China, Russia seeks the dual-use technologies that American universities cultivate. The single largest source of Russian funds to American higher education is the Skolkovo Foundation, an organization whose core mission is to advance the Russian economy. MIT reportedly had been working with the Skolkovo Foundation since 2011, helping Russia build its own “Silicon Valley.” Given that 74 percent of ransomware revenue flows to Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the nature of MIT’s partnership with Russia could have threatened national security.

Authoritarian regimes exploit American academia for strategic reasons. Higher education is the national reservoir of innovation. From 1985 to 1997, patents originating from university-affiliated researchers increased in the fields of pharmaceuticals and semiconductors. After closing its CI, Portland State University opened a new partnership with Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, centered on science and technology. Nanjing boasts close ties with China’s military, while Portland State has its own National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Research sponsored by the National Security Agency. Elsewhere, New York’s Alfred University recently partnered with the U.S. Army to help develop technology related to hypersonic missiles. Perhaps not coincidentally, Alfred University also has a Confucius Institute.

Taxpaying Americans fund the research taking place at American universities and should be top recipients of its output. Since 2011, U.S. colleges and universities drastically increased their spending on research and development. Federal taxpayers alone funded 55 percent of that research. As a snapshot in raw dollar amounts, the federal government allotted $49 billion to academia for research and development in 2021. Because of the presence of foreign powers at U.S. universities, either in the form of direct funding from abroad or bilateral academic partnerships, U.S. taxpayers are funding the development of American competitors and adversaries.

Sovereignty in education matters and needs restoring. American taxpayers fund colleges that train the economic elites of other countries, and hemorrhage technological acumen for authoritarians abroad. An aggressive China and Russia are not only increasing their hostility towards the US, but are increasing in their coordination to do so. At the same time, American academia continues to collaborate with hostile powers to the detriment of national interests and the taxpaying citizens upon which they rely.

Reasserting sovereignty in higher education is as simple as exercising fiscal responsibility. Taxpayer funds in American colleges and universities should not be allowed to compete with money from abroad, whether in the form of foreign tuition dollars, grants or endowments. Legislating a mandate for ratio funding needs is a first step in reestablishing sovereignty in the classroom. For every foreign dollar an American university receives from any source, it should be ineligible for taxpayer support in an equivalent amount. A 1-to-1, dollar-to-dollar ratio reduction eliminates incentives for opening American academic research to American adversaries.

The second key aspect of reasserting American sovereignty in higher education requires eliminating  exemptions for the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) related to research, artistic and educational endeavors. Currently, FARA exempts “scholastic, academic, fine arts or scientific pursuits.” FARA offers virtually no protection of U.S. universities as national and institutional resources, despite the fact that many authoritarian states fund their citizens to attend American colleges. Much of the $12 billion American colleges receive each year from students from China has ties to the CCP. Among non-citizen professors working in American higher education, 22 percent are from China alone. Totalitarian states do not often allow students and professionals to work abroad without strings attached. FARA must change to apply to those representing totalitarianism in the college classroom.

American sovereignty is nonexistent in the country’s university system, with authoritarian states dwarfing allies in their influence. Because universities are the training ground for American professionals and an incubator of research with significant importance for economic growth and national security, sovereignty in the ivory tower is a matter that must be taken seriously — and be reclaimed.

Ian Oxnevad is senior fellow for foreign affairs and security studies at the National Association of Scholars.