New Act Bans University Contracts with 'Foreign Countries of Concern,' Creates Transparency Loophole

The “Securing Academia from Foreign Entanglements Act” is essentially a new set of rules for colleges and universities about where they can—and can’t—take money from overseas. The core of the bill is a hard ban: U.S. institutions cannot accept any gift or enter into any contract with a government designated as a “foreign country of concern.” This designation applies to nations already restricted under certain export laws, plus any country the Secretary of Education (working with the Secretaries of Defense and State, and the Director of National Intelligence) decides is acting against U.S. national security or foreign policy.

The New Forbidden List: Who Decides?

This bill creates a new Section 117A in the Higher Education Act, making it crystal clear that money from these designated countries is off-limits. For a university trying to fund a new research lab or an exchange program, this means they’ll have to immediately cut ties with any government that lands on the new list. The big catch here is the power given to the Secretary of Education and the intelligence community to decide who makes the list. The criteria—“harms U.S. national security or foreign policy”—is broad, meaning the list could potentially change based on shifting geopolitical priorities rather than clear, objective metrics. While the intent is to protect sensitive U.S. research and intellectual property, the broad authority could make long-term international planning difficult for academic institutions.

The Transparency Trade-Off

This is where the bill gets interesting—and potentially confusing. Currently, universities have to publicly disclose large foreign gifts. However, this new Act actually excludes gifts from these newly banned “foreign countries of concern” from that existing disclosure requirement (Section 117(h)(2)(A)). Think about that: the bill bans institutions from taking the money, but if they did take it, they wouldn’t have to report it under the usual transparency rules. This creates a loophole where, if an institution somehow manages to skirt the ban, the public and Congress would lose a key mechanism for tracking that foreign influence.

Real-World Impact on Campus Life

For a research university, this bill changes the game overnight. Say a university has a major engineering research partnership funded by a foreign government that suddenly gets designated a “country of concern.” The university must immediately terminate that contract, potentially leaving researchers scrambling for new funding and halting critical projects. However, the bill explicitly carves out an exception for students: the ban does not apply to standard payments like tuition, room, board, or other fees associated with attending the school. So, students from these designated countries can still attend U.S. universities, but the institution itself can’t sign official contracts or accept gifts from that student’s government. This keeps the door open for international students while trying to block state-level influence.