Qatar is the top country donating foreign funds to American universities, and Cornell University is its leading recipient, according to a new dashboard from the Department of Education that displays foreign gifts and contracts provided to U.S. educational institutions.

According to the database, $2.3 billion out of the $3 billion Cornell has received in foreign funding came from Qatar, which is a key financial supporter of Hamas. Qatar has provided $6.6 billion to universities overall, significantly more than the next leading countries, bolstering criticisms of the Gulf state’s potential influence over American higher education.

In a March interview with Jewish Insider, Cornell President Michael Kotlikoff defended the university’s decision to take funds from Qatar, saying that the “narrative that somehow Qatari funding coming to the university affects the university’s decisions or faculty courses could not be further from the truth.”      

“Virtually almost all of the money that the Qatar Foundation has listed as going to Cornell is spent in Doha on education in the medical school that Cornell helps Qataris manage,” Kotlikoff told JI. 

According to the new dashboard, American universities have received more than $60 billion in foreign gifts and contracts over the span of several decades. Schools are required to report foreign gifts and contracts totaling over $250,000 in a year to the Department of Education as laid out in the Higher Education Act of 1965. 

Following Qatar, the top countries funding U.S. schools include Germany, England, China, Canada and Saudi Arabia, with each giving around $4 billion. Harvard University has received the most foreign funding at about $4 billion from various countries, followed by Cornell.