Qatar’s deep funding into U.S. education — billions over decades and key university partnerships — raises questions about ideological influence and national security, especially given ties between Qatari institutions and Islamist groups and contested decisions by university leaders to accept and celebrate Qatari patrons.
President Donald Trump’s recent executive order targeting the Muslim Brotherhood lays out a strategy to curb an Islamist network that has long pushed its ideology beyond the Middle East. The administration frames this campaign as a defense of American institutions, including colleges where ideas and research should remain free from foreign manipulation. That concern maps directly onto the steady flow of Qatari money into U.S. higher education.
Federal disclosures show Qatar has funneled roughly $6.5 billion into American colleges and universities since the early 2000s. That places it among the top foreign funders of U.S. higher education, on par with China despite China’s economy and population being many times larger. Those raw numbers matter because where the money goes, influence can follow.
Qatar is a Major Non-NATO Ally but it also plays host to and bankrolls actors linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. Qatar-owned Al Jazeera often functions as a bullhorn for Hamas and the broader Muslim Brotherhood. Those connections make it reasonable to scrutinize how Qatari funding might shape curricula, research priorities, and public messaging on American campuses.
Georgetown University is the clearest example of deep Qatari ties. Since 2005 Georgetown has received nearly $1 billion from Qatar and established a campus in Doha, GU-Q, in partnership with the Qatar Foundation. Qatar has funded fellowships and faculty positions at Georgetown’s Washington campus, and Qatari royals sit on advisory boards and the university’s board of directors.
In April 2025 Georgetown awarded its President’s Medal to Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, the mother of Qatar’s emir, a choice the university defended publicly. Interim President Robert M. Groves said the medal “is reserved for individuals whose contributions reflect the university’s deepest commitments.” Months before accepting the award, Sheikha Moza posted a on X for Hamas mastermind Yahya Sinwar, and Groves later defended honoring her at a July 2025 congressional hearing.
GU-Q’s programming has also pulled in controversial speakers with clear ties to Qatar’s media ecosystem. In September 2024 GU-Q hosted former Al Jazeera executive Wadah Khanfar at a conference where he argued that October 7 “came at the perfect moment for a radical and real shift in the path of struggle and liberation.” Khanfar previously eulogized Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual guide, who publicly endorsed suicide bombings and taught that “the abduction and killing of Americans in Iraq is a [religious] duty.”
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Northwestern University’s satellite campus in Doha, NU-Q, is another major recipient of Qatari funds and a public claim to prioritize free speech. That relationship looks contradictory when the contract reportedly requires NU and its people to adhere to Qatari laws and regulations — the same rules that curtail criticism of the Qatari government. Course assignments and faculty relationships at NU-Q have also raised questions, including ties to individuals once linked by court documents to organizations found liable for funneling funds to Hamas.
The influence is not limited to colleges. Qatar has given tens of millions of dollars to K-12 education programs across the United States. In Brooklyn, a Qatar-funded Arab arts and culture program at P.S. 261 distributed a map labeling Israel as “Palestine,” and Sheikha Moza visited that elementary school in April 2018. Those localized programs can shift narratives early, at impressionable ages.
The Trump administration has signed an April executive order promising to “protect the marketplace of ideas from propaganda sponsored by foreign governments, and safeguard America’s students and research from foreign exploitation.” Yet U.S. policy toward Qatar remains inconsistent, even as evidence accumulates about where Qatari money ends up. Republicans who worry about foreign influence see an obvious problem: financial ties should not come at the cost of institutional independence or national security.
