The U.S. Department of Education’s new public dashboard tracking foreign gifts and contracts to colleges is drawing scrutiny from higher education experts over how the data is presented. The portal aggregates disclosed amounts under Section 117 of a decades-old law, showing hundreds of institutions received more than $72 billion in gifts and contracts from 194 countries. Critics argue the site lacks context—such as time periods, trends by year, and the reasons behind specific gifts or contracts—making it easier for audiences to misinterpret cumulative totals as annual figures. Sarah Spreitzer of the American Council on Education said the dashboard “doesn’t say what time period the amounts cover,” and that users can’t easily sort by year. The Department of Education countered that the portal reflects disclosures made since 1986 and that most data had already been reported to the agency since 2019, describing the initiative as a transparency measure tied to Section 117 compliance.