If enacted, the proposal would effectively disallow thousands of international trainees from getting involved in OPT, having a possibly devastating impact on incoming international mobility to United States universities.
Solely broken yesterday by the Washington Post, news of the plans came through an individual acquainted with the matter speaking under privacy.
The plans are purportedly still under conversation, and a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said “no policies must be thought about final till officially announced”, however did not deny it was under factor to consider.
“Our migration system is being reformed to serve American residents, American employees, and American households and to maintain our nationwide identity– not to quickly import foreigners who take American jobs, dedicate criminal offenses, steal our intellectual property and engage in corporate espionage, and erode our cultural and social fabric,” they informed The PIE News.
In its present type, OPT provides global trainees a chance to work in the United States for 12 months. Those taking STEM OPT have the alternative to extend their work period by a further 2 years.
International students remain on their F-1 visa for the duration of the program, though following the administration’s last guideline ending duration of status, from September they will be needed to file for an extension of stay with DHS.
The program has been main to America’s appeal as the world’s largest host country of global trainees, with nearly 295,000 total OPT participants in 2024/25 according to the newest data from IIE.
The workstream’s growing appeal has actually been the motorist of rising global trainee levels over the last few years, with OPT participants counted in F-1 student overalls.
In 2024/25, OPT saw a continued boost of 21%– simply below the previous year’s development rate and mainly driven by Indian trainees who comprised simply under half (49%) of all OPT individuals.
The university sector has actually long been preparing for a modification to the post-graduation work program, with repeated calls from within federal government for its abolition, with the head of ICE just recently branding the program a “magnet for fraud”.
It is understood that DHS is still planning a broad overhaul of OPT, with brand-new guidelines expected this fall.
Notably, if the rumoured $100,000 cost is enacted, it remains unclear whether the charge would be strained by worldwide students themselves or potential universities and employers.
At DHS we are constantly having conversations about how to utilize all tools in our arsenal to secure the stability of our legal migration system
DHS
Last year, Trump’s shock statement of a $100,000 charge on H-1B proficient employee visas was consulted with fierce criticism from US universities and prospective employers especially in Silicon Valley.
It was later clarified that global students would be exempted from the charge, and recently a federal appeals court blocked the administration’s bid to begin collecting the brand-new $100,000 charge for H-1B visas.
If attached to CHOOSE, the fee could significantly get worse the declining flow of global students to the United States, with 6 in 10 US colleges reporting a fall in international trainee applications following 18 months of policy turbulence and visa difficulties during Trump’s 2nd administration.
The workstream is commonly cited as one of the primary reasons for trainees selecting to study in the United States, with over half of present postgraduate students indicating they wouldn’t have actually enrolled at an American university had OPT been rescinded, a recent NAFSA study found.
With more focus than ever on post-graduation work chances and concerns about the ROI of a United States degree, ill Colvin SVP international services at Shorelight explained OPT as “the infrastructure for American success”.
I can’t imagine a world where we compete without OPT,” he said, speaking at a significant market conference previously this year.