House Republicans are urging seven U.S. universities to cut ties with a Chinese scholarship program that lawmakers call a "nefarious mechanism" to steal technology for the Chinese government .
In letters to Dartmouth College, the University of Notre Dame and five other universities, leaders of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party raise concerns about the schools' partnerships with the China Scholarship Council, a study abroad program funded by China.
The program sponsors hundreds of Chinese graduate students every year at U.S. universities. After graduating, they're required to return to China for two years. In the letters sent Tuesday, Republicans described it as a threat to national security.
"CSC purports to be a joint scholarship program between U.S. and Chinese institutions however, in reality it is a CCP-managed technology transfer effort that exploits U.S. institutions and directly supports China's military and scientific growth," wrote Republican Rep. John Moolenaar , chair of the committee.
Letters were also sent also to Temple University, the University of Tennessee and the University of California campuses in Davis, Irvine and Riverside. The committee said it's opening a review into the program's "infiltration" of U.S. universities and demanded records related to the program from all seven institutions.