Making OPT Unaffordable Is a Stupid Way to Fight Fraud

DHS wants your school to pay $70,000 before recommending you for Optional Practical Training. It would charge another $30,000 for each subsequent recommendation after the initial fee has been paid.

Yes, those are the actual numbers in the proposal. Neither charge is in effect. But for F-1 students planning their education and careers, this deserves attention now.

What would change

The school would formally owe the money before its designated school official recommends OPT. Schools could pass the cost to students or employers, spread it more broadly, or stop making recommendations they cannot afford.

The proposal covers pre-completion OPT, post-completion OPT, and STEM extensions. An initial OPT recommendation followed by a STEM extension would generally produce $100,000 in new charges. Ordinary application fees would remain separate. Changing employers alone would not trigger another payment.

OPT recommended before the rule’s effective date would be protected from these fees for that period. A later recommendation could still trigger the charge. Someone already on OPT could face the initial $70,000 charge when seeking a STEM extension after a future effective date. Being enrolled already would not protect every later step.

Why does DHS want this

DHS points to fraud, limited oversight resources, and competition with American workers. Fraud is real. GAO has documented oversight weaknesses. Sham employers have charged students for fake jobs and “OPT compliance” paperwork, sometimes leaving the students who paid them facing devastating immigration consequences. But the cited evidence does not establish a reliable program-wide fraud rate, much less show that charging $70,000 separates honest students from dishonest ones.

DHS’s solution to inadequate oversight is to price people out of OPT so there are fewer left to supervise. Apparently, it’s easier to shrink the program than properly police it. A wealthy bad actor could still pay; an honest scholarship student might not. That tests access to money, not whether the training is legitimate.

The funding explanation is particularly strange. Congress’s $500 H-1B/L-1 fraud surcharge goes into an earmarked enforcement account. The proposed initial OPT charge is 140 times larger, yet the money would go to the Treasury, and ICE could not retain it to strengthen enforcement. H-1B and L-1 filings carry other fees too, but Congress set the charge specifically for fighting fraud at $500.

Congress has also supplied billions in additional ICE funding. The money has restrictions and is not all available for OPT oversight. Still, DHS owes students a convincing explanation of the remaining shortfall and why a huge price barrier is the answer.

Could this survive a legal challenge

There are serious questions: Does authority to set immigration conditions authorize this kind of charge? Has DHS adequately connected its chosen price to fraud prevention? Has it reasonably addressed students who committed years of tuition based on existing rules? DHS has defenses, and bad policy is not automatically unlawful. Nobody should promise that a court will rescue their plans.

The harm starts before graduation

Students choose a country partly because of what an education lets them do afterward. Wanting practical experience does not make your degree a sham.

International enrollment is already showing warning signs. IIE’s fall 2025 survey reported a 17% drop in new international enrollment. By spring 2026, international graduate enrollment was down 4.3% year over year, even as international undergraduate enrollment grew. Those declines predate this proposal. Adding a $70,000 obstacle hardly seems like a brilliant recruitment strategy.

The consequences extend beyond campus. NAFSA estimates international students contributed $42.9 billion and supported nearly 356,000 American jobs in 2024–25. Fewer students can mean less tuition revenue, less spending at local businesses, and fewer opportunities for American workers. Students who choose another country take their tuition, spending, and talent with them.

We cannot put an exact dollar figure on the damage this proposal would cause. But making American education less attractive while claiming to protect Americans deserves some serious scrutiny.

Making legitimate training unaffordable is a stupid way to fight fraud when DHS has not shown why ability to pay is a useful integrity test.

For now, follow current OPT requirements and deadlines. Talk with your school about your next recommendation, especially a STEM extension. This proposal does not create a $70,000 bill today.

Planning your next step after OPT? Explore our H-1B and O-1A services, or schedule a consultation with Benjamin Hamilton.