I bet you’ve never heard of the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education.
If you have it’s probably because you or someone you know received a HOPE, LIFE or Palmetto Fellows state merit scholarship. Every year, our agency administers these and other scholarship programs that total about $370 million in financial aid that helps nearly 100,000 South Carolina students achieve their dream of a college education.
As important as these scholarships are, they only scratch the surface of how the Commission on Higher Education touches the lives of South Carolina citizens.
If you’re attending one of our state colleges, this agency approved the program in which you’re enrolled. And if you’re attending a private trade school, we’ve provided the licensing that ensures their quality.
If you’re a veteran — thank you for your service — we make sure the school you attend meets federal standards. Members of the SC National Guard also have a special scholarship for which they can qualify.
We help students and their families prepare the Free Application for Federal Student Aid which is the first stop in securing scholarships, grants, and loans that help make college a reality. Then we partner with colleges and universities at hundreds of events statewide to help high school students identify and apply to the institution that best meets their needs.
Every year, we also collect massive amounts of data regarding higher education and the operation of campuses which we use in reporting to the General Assembly and governor to ensure colleges meet expectations (accountability).
By the way, our agency generates more than 60 reports every year that are either required by statute or are requested by legislators.
I’m very proud that this agency serves as the state’s honest broker, providing the governor and legislators with the statistics and facts they rely on to make higher education policy for the state.
And what’s the broader impact of our work?
Our K-12 schools depend on the teachers prepared at South Carolina’s colleges and universities. Our roads and bridges are designed by engineers who were educated at a South Carolina institution, and they were built by graduates of our technical colleges.
You no doubt have depended on a doctor or nurse who themselves relied on a college or university in South Carolina to acquire their knowledge and skills.
These are just a handful of the hundreds of different career paths paved by a college education in South Carolina.
Our agency is a very active partner in the state Coordinating Council for Workforce Development, which collaborates with other state agencies to align our education system with the state’s workforce needs.
With all these responsibilities you may think we have a large staff. But we’re only around 55 employees — and less than 2% of our budget goes toward operating costs.
If someone mentions “college,” one of South Carolina’s beautiful campuses may spring to mind.
But behind our state’s system of higher education, you can trust that the Commission on Higher Education is performing the quiet, essential work to drive post-secondary accessibility, excellence and accountability, delivering an outsized impact that shapes our communities, workforce, and individual prosperity every day.
Jeffrey Perez became president and executive director of the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education in July 2024. He previously served as president and CEO of South Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities. His earlier roles include vice president positions at Winthrop University and The Citadel, as well as leadership roles at Shawnee State University and within the State University of New York system. He holds a doctorate degree in American history from the College of William and Mary, a master’s degree from Binghamton University, and a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University.
Education Department data shows foreign contracts, gifts to US colleges topped $5B in 2025
BY: SHAUNEEN MIRANDA - FEBRUARY 27, 2026 11:20 AM
WASHINGTON — American colleges and universities received gifts and contracts worth more than $5.2 billion from foreign entities in 2025, according to the U.S. Department of Education, which also recently published summaries of foreign investment in U.S. higher education dating back to 1986.
Qatar, the United Kingdom, China, Switzerland, Japan, Germany and Saudi Arabia marked the largest sources of reportable gifts and contracts to U.S. institutions in 2025, according to the agency, which released the latest funding disclosures this month.
The department also made public roughly 40 years of data on a transparency dashboard that offers a snapshot of the foreign funding disclosures submitted by colleges and universities. The administration described the move as a transparency effort, but critics say it lacks key context.
The dashboard shows cumulative data since 1986, when Congress amended the Higher Education Act of 1965 to mandate colleges and universities receiving federal financial assistance disclose any foreign gifts or contracts valued at or above $250,000 annually.
SC colleges
FROM SC DAILY GAZETTE
The federal dashboard shows four colleges in South Carolina received a total of nearly $175 million in foreign funding:
The provision, known as Section 117, “came about due to concerns about malign actors trying to either use educational platforms to promote agendas that were not in the national interest or about getting access to American youth or about exerting influence on institutions,” said Rick Hess, senior fellow and director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank.
And while the Education Department this month heralded the dashboard as a major step toward transparency in foreign influence in U.S. education, the tool does not separate gifts and contracts by year, limiting its use to help the public spot trends or identify major gifts.
Details about the gifts and contracts, such as what was given or what work was contracted, are not displayed on the dashboard.
Trump priority
President Donald Trump and his administration have sought to increase transparency requirements when it comes to foreign funds entering U.S. colleges and universities.
Part of the administration’s effort includes an April 2025 executive order that sought to “end the secrecy surrounding foreign funds in American educational institutions” and to “safeguard America’s students and research from foreign exploitation.”
The public transparency dashboard is housed on a portal, launched in January, where colleges and universities are responsible for disclosing foreign gifts and contracts.
The Education Department announced Feb. 23 that it would partner with the State Department on foreign gift and contract reporting under Section 117.
The move — one of several interagency agreements announced so far by the administration — is part of the administration’s ongoing efforts to dismantle the 46-year-old agency.
State will help the Education Department manage its foreign funding reporting portal and “use its national security and foreign national academic admissions expertise to review and assess the industry’s compliance with the law, share data with the public and federal stakeholders, and identify potential threats,” the Education Department said.
Nearly $70 billion disclosed
At least 555 institutions have disclosed $67.6 billion in foreign gifts and contracts between 1986 and mid-December 2025, according to the dashboard.
The institutions that have received the most funding in foreign gifts and contracts since Section 117 was enacted are Harvard University in Massachusetts, at $4.2 billion; Carnegie Mellon University, in Pennsylvania, at $3.9 billion; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at $3.5 billion; Cornell University in New York, at $3.1 billion and the University of Pennsylvania, at $2.8 billion.
The dashboard also includes a separate section on the total value of transactions in foreign gifts and contracts with “counterparties located in countries of concern,” such as China, Russia and Venezuela.
The universities that received the most money from counterparties in these “countries of concern” are Harvard, at $610.8 million; MIT, at $490.1 million; New York University, at $462.5 million; Stanford University in California, at $418.5 million; and Yale University in Connecticut, at $400.2 million.
Concerns from higher ed groups
Some higher education groups expressed concerns over the dashboard, including limitations they see with how the data is portrayed.
The cumulative nature of the dashboard does not allow the public to see how the amount of money in foreign gifts and contracts received by schools fluctuated throughout the years.
“There’s no way to kind of break out what the funding is by the year, or perhaps by the funding cycle, so you can’t really see any funding trends,” Sarah Spreitzer, vice president and chief of staff for government relations at the American Council on Education, told States Newsroom.
The association serves as the major coordinating body for the country’s colleges and universities, representing roughly 1,600 institutions.
Spreitzer emphasized a lack of context throughout the dashboard, including on the list of foreign entities of concern and whether such funding is active or reflects past funding.
For instance, the U.S. Department of Commerce designated the Chinese tech company Huawei as an entity of concern in 2019.
Huawei has provided roughly $22.7 million in funding to American universities, overall, according to the dashboard. But the dashboard doesn’t show the gifts and contracts all came prior to the entity-of-concern designation, Spreitzer said.
“None of our institutions have taken funding from Huawei since 2019, if not earlier, when we were informed of the concerns around Huawei,” Spreitzer said. “However, the way that the information is presented, it seems to imply that our institutions are still taking funding from Huawei.”
Spreitzer said that the dashboard “demonstrates that our schools are complying with Section 117 and they are meeting their reporting obligations.”
“I hope that people are not making broad assumptions based on how the data is presented right now,” added Spreitzer, who hopes the administration will continue making improvements to the dashboard, such as separating the disclosures by year and adding additional context.
Shauneen Miranda is a reporter for States Newsroom’s Washington bureau. An alumna of the University of Maryland, she previously covered breaking news for Axios.
SC Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
