A Proposed $100,000 Fee on Student Work Authorization

The Trump administration is weighing a $100,000 fee that would apply to international graduates seeking to work in the US after finishing their degrees, according to reporting from the Wall Street Journal and other outlets. The fee would attach to Optional Practical Training (OPT), the program that lets international graduates work in the US on their student visas for 1-3 years after completing school. Though the proposal is not final, it fits a broader pattern of policy moves that are steadily raising the cost and narrowing the certainty of temporary immigration pathways, and that pattern is worth understanding for anyone planning a long-term future in the country.

What Is Being Proposed

OPT is one of the primary reasons many international students choose the US over competitors such as Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia. It allows graduates to work for a period after graduation and recoup some of the substantial cost of an American degree, which at private universities can exceed $100,000 a year in tuition and living expenses. Roughly 419,000 people were working under OPT in 2024, the most recent year for which figures are available.

The proposed fee would apply to that work authorization, though a key detail remains unresolved: it is not yet clear who would bear the cost, whether the students themselves or the universities and employers that hire them. The proposal is still under discussion at the Department of Homeland Security, and it has not been decided whether the White House will approve it. A DHS spokeswoman emphasized that the department continually reviews options and that no policy should be treated as final until formally announced, and a White House official likewise said no change was imminent while not ruling out that the idea was under internal discussion.

The Proposal is Part of a Wider Pattern

The OPT fee does not stand alone. It is one of several $100,000 charges the administration has floated as part of a broader effort to limit legal immigration for those with fewer financial resources. It closely echoes a proposed $100,000 fee on H-1B visas that alarmed the technology industry last year. That fee was ultimately narrowed to apply only to new hires coming from abroad, after industry pushback and a federal appeals court in Boston blocked its collection amid ongoing litigation. Notably, because large technology and finance firms tend to recruit graduates directly from American universities and then convert them from student visas to H-1Bs rather than hiring from abroad, a fee on OPT would reach those companies more directly than the H-1B fee did.

Separately, State Department officials are reportedly weighing a $100,000 requirement for people applying for green cards from outside the US, refundable only after they immigrate and naturalize. And the OPT proposal builds on a change announced earlier this month requiring international students to formally apply for an extension to use OPT, ending a long-standing policy that had automatically covered them for the length of their studies plus up to three years of work authorization. DHS is also preparing a broader overhaul of OPT rules that could be released as soon as this fall, with restrictionist officials having long sought to curtail the program and STEM OPT in particular.

The Cumulative Effect on Temporary Pathways

Taken together, these measures point in a consistent direction. The student to green card path that many foreign professionals have relied on is becoming more expensive, more uncertain, and more heavily gated at each step. The recent end of "duration of status" protections shortened the runway of student status itself. The OPT extension requirement added a federal filing where none existed. A six-figure OPT fee, if adopted, would add a substantial financial barrier at the point of transition to work. And the H-1B step already carries its own cost and lottery uncertainty. Universities are watching some competitor countries expand English-language programs and ease local employment paths to position themselves as alternatives.

For an individual, the significance is less any single fee than the accumulation. Each stage of the temporary pathway now carries more cost and more discretion, and the reliability that once made the study-to-work route attractive is eroding.

Where EB-5 Enters the Picture

This is the context in which a growing number of students and their families begin to look at pathways that do not depend on that sequence at all. EB-5 is structured differently from the ground up. It leads to permanent residence through a qualifying investment rather than through enrolled student status, employer sponsorship, or work authorization that must be renewed and, increasingly, paid for. An investor is not subject to the OPT clock, the H-1B lottery, or the fees being layered onto those programs, because permanent residence under EB-5 does not run through them.

For a family already funding an expensive American education, the comparison can be clarifying. Where the temporary route now involves stacking costs and uncertainties across several years and several agencies, EB-5 offers a single, investment-based path to permanent residence that, in the reserved categories, has remained current for every country throughout the current fiscal year and allows eligible applicants already in the US to file for adjustment of status, work authorization, and travel authorization concurrently. None of this makes EB-5 the right choice for everyone, and it is a substantial financial commitment in its own right. But for those weighing the rising cost and diminishing certainty of the student-to-work track, it is increasingly part of the conversation.

Final Thoughts

The proposed OPT fee is not final, and its details remain unsettled. But it is a clear marker of the direction of U.S. immigration policy: temporary pathways for foreign students and workers are being made costlier and less predictable, one measure at a time. For families investing heavily in an American education with an eye toward staying, that direction is worth factoring into long-term planning sooner rather than later. As with any developing policy, the specifics will continue to evolve, and anyone whose plans may be affected should confirm current requirements and consult qualified immigration counsel before making decisions.

Because your Green Card Shouldn't Take a Lifetime