Since coming under federal scrutiny, the 12 schools disclosed a combined $6.5 billion in foreign funding that was previously unreported, the department said.
Yale said it failed to submit foreign funding reports for the years 2014 to 2017 but later corrected the omission.
It's not unusual for U.S. colleges to accept foreign funding for research projects or exchange programs, but federal reporting requirements have long been treated as an honor system.
That began to change last year, however, after a bipartisan report in Congress raised alarms about collegesโ ties with China.
In response to that finding, DeVos began ordering broader investigations into universities' foreign funding.