The Trump administration is cracking down on what officials describe as unchecked foreign influence on U.S. campuses, initiating investigations into the sources of foreign funding at several prominent universities amid a broader campaign to police higher education.

Last week the Department of Education opened an investigation into foreign funding at the University of Michigan after a review of the school’s reports “revealed inaccurate and incomplete disclosures,” according to the department. Paul Moore, chief investigative counsel at the agency, said the university incorrectly identified foreign funders as “nongovernmental entities,” though they appear to be “directly affiliated with foreign governments.”

“Despite the University of Michigan’s history of downplaying its vulnerabilities to malign foreign influence, recent reports reveal that UM’s research laboratories remain vulnerable to sabotage. … As the recipient of federal research funding, UM has both a moral and legal obligation to be completely transparent about its foreign partnerships,” Moore said in a statement.

The administration has opened similar investigations into Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Berkeley.

Critics on both sides of the aisle have expressed concern with foreign funding flowing into U.S. colleges and universities. They say the money raises questions about foreign influences over research as well as national security issues relating to potential espionage and theft of sensitive information.

But the move also comes in the context of President Donald Trump’s multipronged effort to reshape higher education. It follows billions in cuts to research grants in response to what the administration is calling antisemitism on campus, efforts to revoke the visas of foreign student activists, attempts to insert itself into the operations and administration of universities, changes to accreditation procedures, and State Department threats to curtail foreign student enrollment.

“I think what you’re seeing is the politicization or the weaponizing of federal policies,” says Sarah Spreitzer, American Council on Education vice president and chief of staff of government relations. “This administration is really using these federal regulations that have been around for a very, very long time to push a very specific agenda.”

Administration officials said their goal is to root out any foreign influence, but on the campaign trail Trump indicated universities were deserving of his ire because they were “leftist” and “communist.”

“After 50 years of leftist domination of the universities, I will take bold action to reclaim our colleges from the communist left,” Trump said during a speech in 2023. “Anti-American radicals will no longer be given a free hand to dominate our institutions of higher education. … We are going to choke off the money to schools that aid the Marxist assault on our American heritage and on Western civilization itself.”