There is a fundamental difference between how China and the United States view higher education. Grasping that difference is essential to national security. Top Chinese graduate students are cultivated with the expectation that their expertise will advance state priorities. So when Beijing sends its top students to matriculate at American universities, it is not pursuing benign cultural exchange; it is deploying strategic assets.
Seen through that lens, China is using the American university system as a conduit for absorbing American know-how, extracting technical expertise, and moving valuable research and intellectual property back to China. The practical effect is that People’s Republic of China (PRC) nationals are often placed in sensitive labs and federally funded research roles, frequently at taxpayer expense, under limited scrutiny and with ample institutional cover.
The Sept. 19, 2025 report, “From Ph.D. to PLA” (the People’s Liberation Army), from the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the U.S. and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), confirms that America’s top research universities have become reliable access points for the PRC’s defense ecosystem — through visas, federally funded research appointments, and institutional partnerships that fail to account for, much less mitigate, the CCP’s “military-civil fusion strategy.”
The Department of State defines the military-civil fusion strategy as a CCP strategy to build a “world class” PLA by 2049 by leveraging civilian research and siphoning intellectual property and technological advances to serve military aims.
The committee’s investigation targeted six schools: University of Maryland, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), Carnegie Mellon, USC, Purdue, and Stanford. They investigated Chinese students: where they previously studied, how they’re funded, what research they conduct, and how deeply the universities collaborate with Chinese counterparts. The report’s significant conclusion is that U.S. visa and university policies are enabling PRC defense-linked entities to tap American higher education.
In May 2020, President Trump issued Presidential Proclamation 10043 to block entry for certain PRC graduate students and researchers linked to China’s military-civil fusion apparatus. However, the Biden administration failed to enforce it. The committee identified Chinese graduate students at the surveyed universities who had previously attended “Seven Sons of National Defense” universities — the very category of entrant the Trump-era policy was meant to restrict.
The report’s second finding is the one most likely to trouble the average American because it shows that the American taxpayer is either “directly or indirectly” underwriting substantial portions of PRC doctoral training in STEM fields here on U.S. soil. The report shows that one university disclosed that it had 1,139 Chinese graduate staff appointments, with 515 paid via sponsored programs funded by federal, state, or private grants or contracts. Notably, 402 of those paid positions were funded by federal grants or contracts. The report adds that among those 402 federally funded Chinese nationals, 205 were in the College of Engineering, and 107 were in the College of Science, including disciplines such as aeronautics, nuclear engineering, and computer science. Pictured below, an excerpt detailing some of the data from page 6 of the report:
The report states in finding number three that “every university” the Select Committee surveyed had students “from China’s top military and defense research universities, including institutions tied to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and China’s defense industrial base.” More alarming is the finding that “many of the Chinese universities (from which the PRC students come) are on U.S. government blacklists.” According to the report, many of the students are studying “advanced fields like artificial intelligence and quantum science.”
The relationships described are not isolated cases, but instead are widespread institutional and faculty ties — durable relationships that create and foster repeated placements, repeated access, and repeated legitimization of ways for sensitive intellectual property to flow back to the CCP. The University of Maryland alone disclosed at least 89 known cases of faculty collaboration with Chinese entities, and there were 15 formal exchange agreements and three formal research agreements. American universities are granting systematic access to the CCP’s military-civil fusion network when matriculating these students.
A related Feb. 11, 2026 press release from the Department of Education (DOE), 2026, announced a new public portal (went live on Jan. 2, 2026) detailing the required foreign funding disclosures submitted by American colleges and universities for 2025. For context, under Section 117 of the Higher Education Act (20 USC §1011f), institutions receiving federal financial assistance must disclose foreign-source gifts and contracts totaling $250,000 or more in a calendar year (including when aggregated with other gifts and contracts from the same foreign source).
The portal is a Trump administration initiative designed to improve reporting quality and oversight, including bulk uploads and condensed “executive summary” views for institutions. The DOE has tied the new system to a broader transparency push under Executive Order 14282 (“Transparency Regarding Foreign Influence at American Universities,” April 23, 2025).
Importantly, the DOE’s new portal flags gifts and contracts connected to “countries of concern,” a defined term in federal law that maps closely onto the U.S. Intelligence Community’s threat picture. Under federal statute, a “foreign country of concern” means the People’s Republic of China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation, and the Islamic Republic of Iran — plus any other country the State Department determines to be a country of concern related to our national security. According to ODNI’s 2025 Annual Threat Assessment, countries like China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, and even Venezuela are major state adversaries that “have weapons that can strike U.S. territory” or can target or disable critical systems (elections) through cyber- or coercive means.
For 2025 alone, DOE data compiled on the portal under Section 117 show more than $5.2 billion in reportable foreign gifts and contracts. In 2025, China was one of the largest foreign funding sources, at over $528 million in reportable gifts and contracts. Notably, the portal lists Qatar and the U.K. ahead of China in 2025 totals (over $1.1 billion and over $633 million, respectively), underscoring that the “foreign funding” problem is broader than adversary states. However, it should be noted that “countries of concern” carry a different risk profile when the concern is technology transfer and influence operations.
The DOE press release also highlights where “countries of concern” funding concentrates over the long run. From 1986 through December 16, 2025 (as identified at 42 USC §19221[a][1]), the U.S. higher education institutions disclosing the largest totals from counterparties located in countries of concern were
Harvard — over $610 million
MIT — over $490 million
New York University — over $462 million
Stanford — over $418 million
Yale — over $400 million
Again, as noted in the Select Committee on China report, these are not insignificant relationships. They are sustained, high-dollar pipelines — operating inside the same research ecosystem Congress is simultaneously warning can be exploited by adversarial states.
For additional context, not limited to the statutory countries of concern, the DOE’s 2025 disclosure summary lists the top overall recipients of reportable foreign gifts and contracts as Carnegie Mellon (almost $1 billion), MIT (almost $1 billion), Stanford (over $775 million), and Harvard (over $324 million). The DOE also noted a compliance problem. More than $2 billion in reportable gifts and contracts were disclosed late during 2025, “in direct violation” of statutory requirements — meaning the public record often arrives long after relationships are formed and the damage is done.
A companion Select Committee report found that the national security vulnerability is not limited to admissions and visas, but extends into federally funded defense research itself. An excerpt from the report is pictured below:
The committee identified roughly 1,400 papers published from June 2023 to June 2025 that acknowledged Department of Defense (DOD) funding or support while also involving PRC-entity collaboration — covering more than 300 DOD grants. More than half involved entities tied to China’s defense research and industrial base, in fields with clear military application.
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