Section 117 of the Higher Education Act requires U.S. universities receiving federal aid to disclose foreign gifts and contracts exceeding $250,000. A February 2026 public transparency dashboard now publishes more than $60 billion in cumulative disclosures with institutional comparisons and country-of-concern flags. This change alters enforcement dynamics: disclosure data can now be used by Congress, media, and agencies to identify outliers and trigger investigations.

The February 2026 Section 117 transparency dashboard effectively converts disclosure data into a mechanism for identifying institutional outliers.

Section 117 of the Higher Education Act requires institutions receiving federal financial assistance to report foreign gifts or contracts exceeding $250,000. Historically, the reporting process functioned as a low-visibility filing obligation submitted through Department of Education systems. Under that model, enforcement depended largely on resource-intensive investigations initiated by the Department of Education.

The February 2026 public transparency portal changes how the disclosure system operates. The portal publishes cumulative institutional disclosures with searchable fields, country-of-origin indicators, and flags for entities designated as national security concerns. The Department of Education reports that the dataset contains more than $60 billion in disclosed foreign funding dating back to the statute’s implementation.

These features allow users to compare institutions directly. The portal highlights which universities report the largest cumulative foreign funding totals and which institutions disclose relationships with counterparties located in countries designated as geopolitical or national security concerns.