Question 1: Which universities are accepting the most?

About two-thirds of the money went to Johns Hopkins and one third to University of Maryland (mostly their College Park campus). And a small amount to Towson.

Last year Johns Hopkins, the University of Maryland and Towson University accepted a total of $3.5 million from Saudi Arabia to pay for students’ tuition through the Saudi Cultural Mission.

China sent a total of $3 million to Johns Hopkins and University of Maryland

Saudi Arabia tortures people, they hold unfair trials that end in the death penalty and women have few rights, and are required to have male guardians

In China, people don’t have freedom of speech, or freedom to practice their religion of choice, they’re tortured, have forced abortions and forced sterilization, state-sponsored forced labor and more.

Towson University has only accepted gifts from Saudi Arabia in its history, no other foreign country. Frostburg State didn't report any foreign funding last year but previously they’ve accepted money only from China and no other country.

 

 

Question 2: What is all that money being used for?

 

Universities are not required to report what they use this money for, which is a huge transparency issue. But our team was still able to piece most of it together.

 

It has been widely reported that Johns Hopkins partnered with Saudi Aramco — the massive Saudi energy company — on a medical campus in the Kingdom. The United Nations has warned Saudi Aramco that its contributions to climate change are a human rights abuse.

 

Some of the money is to confer degrees in other countries.

 

United Arab Emirates in the past sponsored $50 million at Johns Hopkins to make a medical research facility named after Sheikh Khalifa, the country’s former president who oversaw the torture prisoners and violently put down pro-democracy movements. Johns Hopkins added three more facilities in Abu Dhabi.

 

Frostburg State is paying professors to teach classes at Hunan University in China and give degrees to Chinese students.

 

 

Question 3: How does this compare to colleges in other states?

 

Last year Stanford accepted the most foreign funding with $361 million. MIT, Harvard and Cornell were the next three. Johns Hopkins is No. 20 on the list.

 

If we’re talking only about Chinese funding, New York University accepted $80 million,more than double any other school.

 

And Clemson University accepted the most from Saudi Arabia ($26 million)