Trump weighs $100,000 fee for foreign students to work after graduation

The Trump administration is weighing a plan to charge international students $100,000 to stay in the country and work after graduating, according to a person familiar with the matter, in a potentially devastating move for student visa holders already squeezed by recent immigration crackdowns.

The person familiar spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. A White House official said there was no imminent policy change, but didn’t deny the proposal was under consideration.

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If implemented, the fee would put a popular post-graduate visa extension out of reach for many students. The extension, called Optional Practical Training, is a core aspect of the international student pipeline in the US that allows student visa holders to extend their stays in order to gain relevant work experience.

Administration officials have targeted OPT in particular, saying it enables visa fraud and overstays. There were almost 300,000 international students on OPT as of last fall, according to the Institute of International Education — roughly a quarter of the foreign student population in the US.

The potential fee was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

The proposal is the administration’s latest effort to curb the number of international students on US campuses. Earlier this month the Department of Homeland Security announced it was scrapping a decades-old policy that allowed student visa holders to stay in the US for as long as their studies lasted, limiting their time to four years unless granted a special extension.

The fee also echoes the administration’s efforts to pin the same $100,000 price tag on H-1B visas, which have historically funneled global talent, particularly in STEM fields, to US companies. Last month, a federal judge said the fee was illegal, though the White House is appealing the ruling.