Two House Republican leaders are asking the Biden administration whether it has a plan to investigate China’s financial ties with American colleges and universities and counter the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) economic influence in higher education. Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), the top Republican on the House Education Committee, and Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), who chairs the conservative caucus Republican Study Committee, said they are concerned that the Education Department is not taking the threat posed by the CCP seriously. “Hostile governments and their instrumentalities have targeted the higher education sector for exploitation to infiltrate cutting-edge American research projects, influence curricula, and gain access to systems and information available through overseas ‘campuses’ that receive less rigorous oversight than their domestic counterparts,” Foxx and Banks wrote in a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona. “The American public deserves to know that their money is not being compromised by Communist China and other …