Colleges must allow Israel study programs or lose federal aid.
H.R. 4795 — Protect Economic and Academic Freedom Act of 2026 · Filed by Virginia Foxx (R-NC) · 1 cosponsor · Introduced Jul 29, 2025 · Passed chamber
Your members of Congress
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What it does
The bill bars colleges that get federal student aid from boycotting Israel. Colleges must sign a paper each year. The paper says they let students and teachers study in Israel equally. If a college does not sign, it loses all federal education money.
Who it affects
Students at colleges that refuse to sign lose federal aid. Colleges must decide whether to allow Israel programs. Teachers and students who want to study in Israel are affected.
One thing to notice
Colleges that do not sign lose all federal money. This is a big penalty that also hurts students who did not choose the college's stance.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
1 cosponsor: 1 Democrats.
- Jul 29, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Jul 29, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Education and Workforce and Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Education and Workforce”
- Jun 25, 2026 — Markup held in committee · Congress.gov: “Committee Consideration and Mark-up Session Held”
- Jun 25, 2026 — Reported out of committee · Congress.gov: “Ordered to be Reported (Amended) by the Yeas and Nays: 24 - 9”
- Sep 3, 2026 — Passed the House · Congress.gov: “On passage Passed by the Yeas and Nays: 237 - 169 (Roll no. 295)”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
3 groups reported lobbying about this bill. They filed 3 reports from Jun 2026 to Jun 2026.
Those reports show $1,080,990 in lobbying spending. Each report lists about 42 bills. So that money was not all for this bill.
More groups named this bill than 61% of bills with any report.
Virginia Foxx, who sponsored the bill, received $487,750 from PACs for the 2026 election.
- American Israel Public Affairs Committee — $810,990 in 1 report
- J Street — $170,000 in 1 report
- Republican Jewish Coalition — $100,000 in 1 report
Lobbying is legal. These reports show who lobbied about this bill, not what changed.
Words to know
- boycott — Refusing to buy from or work with a company or country to protest something.
- federal student aid — Money the federal government gives to students to pay for college.
- federal education money — Money the federal government gives to colleges for student aid and programs.
- lobbying — Trying to influence lawmakers about a bill. Companies and groups pay people to do this.
- PACs — Groups that collect money and give it to candidates for office.
- sponsored — To sponsor a bill is to introduce it in Congress and put your name on it.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (3,862 characters) on Jul 28, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,778 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-11-01.
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