The White House has begun formal consideration of a plan to impose a $100,000 charge on the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program, which enables international students to work in the United States for up to three years after graduation.
Government records show that the White House is conducting an official review of a proposal from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to levy a $100,000 fee on international students seeking employment in the United States after completing their studies at American universities.
News of the initial plan surfaced toward the end of last month. The move into regulatory review, following the DHS’s formal submission to the White House on Thursday, signals that the measure is progressing toward implementation.
The proposed charge would be tied to the OPT program, which presently permits international students to remain in the U.S. on student visas and work for as long as three years after graduation. It represents a crucial talent channel, particularly for companies hiring in advanced STEM sectors.
President Donald Trump campaigned vigorously on reducing illegal immigration. Yet the newly proposed rule marks a notable shift from one of his earlier positions. “What I want to do and what I will do is you graduate from a college, I think you should get automatically as part of your diploma a green card to be able to stay in this country,” he said in 2024 on an episode of the All-In podcast. “And that includes junior colleges too, anybody graduates from a college. You go there for two years or four years.”
A $100,000 levy, meanwhile, would severely hamper students’ ability to remain in the country.
That Trump would adopt the opposite stance on the campaign trail makes sense to some observers. “When more international students work in the U.S. after graduation, they don’t merely fill job vacancies—they generate greater economic opportunity for Americans by helping local firms grow,” write Sam Peak and Jiaxin He of the Economic Innovation Group. “In 2016, when DHS extended OPT for STEM graduates by seven months, entrepreneurship and job opportunities quickly increased in the localities most exposed to the program.” They also point out that “international students who stay on tend to command notably higher salaries among U.S. STEM degree holders,” challenging the common narrative that employers want to underpay them.
The H-1B visa program, which permits employers to hire foreign workers with specialized skills, has also drawn the Trump administration’s ire as part of a broader push to curb legal migration overall. The government last September announced it would attach a $100,000 fee to those applications as well; a federal judge later ruled that fee unconstitutional. The legal battle continues.
In proposing that fee, officials argued it aimed to address “systematic abuse of the program.” The new planned $100,000 OPT fee could, paradoxically, intensify potential abuse within the H-1B system when considering how the two interact.
International students often use the H-1B pathway after gaining expertise in highly specialized fields. Without OPT, “international students lose the opportunity to demonstrate their value in the labor market, making employers less likely to incur the thousands of dollars in administrative and legal costs to sponsor them for the H-1B,” note Peak and He. “Limiting the chance for recent graduates to test the labor market and enter the lottery will create a vacuum in the H-1B program that would ultimately be filled by the notorious IT outsourcing firms.”
Also relevant is that H-1B visa recipients are chosen through a lottery, which allows entry once a year, up to three times. Highly sought-after international students thus have better odds of success if they can remain employed in the U.S. during those three years. If the Trump administration’s objective is to strengthen the H-1B program, this would not appear to be the right approach.
The data illuminate how this would play out in practice. Researchers found that a one-third drop in U.S.-trained foreign STEM workers would pull down gross domestic product to a level equivalent to losing the entire economies of South Carolina, Utah, or Wisconsin. Is that truly “America First”?
