ED to Launch New Foreign Gift Reporting Portal  

The Department of Education is launching a new portal for institutions to report foreign gifts, addressing President Trump’s April executive order calling for improved federal oversight and enhanced transparency on reporting these gifts.   

After working with a variety of institutions to garner feedback on the new system and beta test the portal for ease of use, the new site will launch on January 2, 2026. 

Institutions have been requesting improvements to the Department’s outdated reporting portal for many years. One important feature the new portal provides is batch uploading for disclosures, which should streamline the administrative burden for institutions. The portal will also provide executive summaries of institutional gifts for increased public transparency.  

Institutions of higher education are required by Section 117 of the Higher Education Act (HEA) to report foreign gifts of $250,000 or more per year to the Department and make the disclosure publicly available. Section 117 has been part of the HEA for decades to protect national security and monitor potential foreign influence in higher education.  

Recent congressional interest in revamping Section 117 has resulted in the House passing the DETERRENT Act multiple times, but the bill has not made it through the Senate process since it was first introduced in 2023.