To amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 to require additional information in disclosures of foreign gifts and contracts from foreign sources.
Legislative Progress
IntroducedMr. Messmer introduced the following bill; which was referred to …
Summary
What This Bill Does
The INSTRUCT Act of 2025 strengthens oversight of foreign influence in American higher education by requiring the Department of Education to share foreign gift disclosure reports with national security and law enforcement agencies. Currently, colleges and universities must report foreign gifts and contracts to the Department of Education, but this information stays siloed within that agency. This bill mandates that all such reports be automatically shared with 11 federal agencies including the FBI, CIA, and intelligence community within 30 days.
Who Benefits and How
National security and law enforcement agencies are the primary beneficiaries. The FBI's counterintelligence division, the CIA, the Director of National Intelligence, and other agencies gain immediate access to detailed information about foreign financial relationships with American universities. This gives them new intelligence tools to identify and investigate potential foreign influence operations, technology transfer concerns, or espionage risks. The State Department and Department of Defense also benefit by gaining visibility into which foreign entities are funding research at US institutions.
Who Bears the Burden and How
The Department of Education faces significant new administrative burdens, having to process and transmit potentially thousands of reports to 11 different agencies within tight 30-day deadlines. Universities and colleges receiving foreign gifts face increased scrutiny and potential investigations, as their foreign relationships become visible to the entire national security apparatus. Foreign governments and entities that provide gifts to US universities face higher risk of exposure and potential enforcement actions. The Government Accountability Office must also conduct a multi-year study on interagency coordination, requiring staff resources.
Key Provisions
- Requires the Secretary of Education to share all foreign gift disclosure reports with 11 federal agencies (FBI, DNI, CIA, State, Defense, Justice, Commerce, Homeland Security, Energy, NSF, and NIH) within 30 days of receiving them
- Mandates retroactive sharing of all existing foreign gift reports and investigation records within 90 days of enactment
- Directs the GAO to study ways to improve interagency coordination on enforcing foreign gift reporting requirements
- Requires GAO to report findings to Congress within 3 years
- Makes all disclosure reports public records open to inspection
Evidence Chain:
This summary is derived from the structured analysis below. See "Detailed Analysis" for per-title beneficiaries/burden bearers with clause-level evidence links.
Primary Purpose
Mandates interagency sharing of foreign gift disclosures from universities to improve national security oversight
Policy Domains
Legislative Strategy
"Strengthen national security oversight of foreign influence in higher education by mandating information sharing across intelligence and law enforcement agencies"
Likely Beneficiaries
- National security agencies (FBI, CIA, DNI)
- Federal law enforcement
- Congressional oversight committees
- Transparency advocates
Likely Burden Bearers
- Department of Education (administrative burden of sharing reports)
- Universities and colleges (potential increased scrutiny)
- Foreign governments and entities engaged with US universities
Bill Structure & Actor Mappings
Who is "The Secretary" in each section?
- "director_nih"
- → Director of the National Institutes of Health
- "director_nsf"
- → Director of the National Science Foundation
- "the_secretary"
- → Secretary of Education
- "attorney_general"
- → Attorney General
- "the_director_cia"
- → Director of the Central Intelligence Agency
- "the_director_dni"
- → Director of National Intelligence
- "the_director_fbi"
- → Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
- "secretary_of_state"
- → Secretary of State
- "comptroller_general"
- → Comptroller General of the United States (GAO)
- "secretary_of_energy"
- → Secretary of Energy
- "secretary_of_defense"
- → Secretary of Defense
- "secretary_of_commerce"
- → Secretary of Commerce
- "secretary_of_homeland_security"
- → Secretary of Homeland Security
Key Definitions
Terms defined in this bill
Reports required under Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 1011f) from institutions of higher education regarding foreign gifts and contracts
Foreign entities providing gifts or contracts to institutions of higher education as defined in Section 117 of the Higher Education Act
We use a combination of our own taxonomy and classification in addition to large language models to assess meaning and potential beneficiaries. High confidence means strong textual evidence. Always verify with the original bill text.
Learn more about our methodology