The Department of Education launched an investigation of the University of California, Berkeley, Friday for allegedly running afoul of federal law by failing to report hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign funding — including from China, according to senior administration officials.
UC Berkeley raked in $220 million from Chinese government officials to build a joint Tsinghua-Berkeley Institute in the city of Shenzhen — but never reported the payment despite its price tag exceeding the $250,000 mandatory disclosure threshold of Section 117 of the Higher Education Act.
Those payments were previously revealed as part of a House committee investigation in 2023 — but a senior Education Department official told reporters Friday that “hundreds of millions of dollars” will now be combed through.
The investigation will also uncover whether significant US technologies were transferred to Chinese state-linked entities as part of the arrangement.
