The Student Applies for Work. The School Gets a $70,000 Bill.
The federal government is not proposing a $70,000 filing fee for an international graduate to submit a work-permit application. The proposal published on October 8 is more unusual. It would require a school to pay $70,000 before its designated school official makes a student's first Optional Practical Training recommendation in SEVIS. A later recommendation would cost another $30,000. The student would still need to complete the separate employment-authorization process. That structure matters because it places a major financial decision before the government's adjudication and inside the educational institution. If finalized, the rule would turn the school official who verifies eligibility into the front end of a system that also decides which students are worth a five-figure institutional commitment.
This is not yet a $70,000 work-permit fee
DHS published the notice of proposed rulemaking on October 8. Comments on the proposed rule are due November 9, with a separate December 7 deadline for comments on the information collection. No school owes the proposed amount today. The text provides that the fee would begin 60 days after publication of a final rule, if DHS adopts one.
The proposed sequence is precise. Before a designated school official, or DSO, makes an initial OPT recommendation for an F-1 student, the SEVP-certified school would have to pay $70,000. Any later OPT recommendation for that student would require $30,000. The initial charge would apply whether the student's first use is pre-completion or post-completion OPT. It is attached to the recommendation, not a particular employer.
After the recommendation, the student would still apply to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for employment authorization and wait for an employment authorization document before beginning work. ICE's current guidance describes that separate process, including the Form I-765 filing fee. The proposed institutional fee does not replace it. The result is not one larger application fee. It is a new financial gate that must open before the application can proceed.
That distinction is already getting blurred in public discussion. Reuters described the proposal as a plan that would make international students pay at least $70,000 in training fees, but the regulatory text assigns the payment duty to the educational institution. Both descriptions may capture the eventual economic effect. Only the second identifies the legal mechanism.
DHS is pricing the recommendation, not the adjudication
A DSO recommendation is currently an eligibility and recordkeeping step. The school official verifies the student's academic status and enters the recommendation in SEVIS. USCIS then decides the employment-authorization application. Under the proposal, the school would need to place $70,000 behind the first recommendation before the government has adjudicated the student's Form I-765.
DHS explains the design openly. It says schools currently recommend students without monetary risk and predicts that a large fee will cause more scrutiny. The agency expects DSOs to spend additional time reviewing applications and institutions to create approval controls for payments of this size. It says the financial commitment will encourage participants to demonstrate seriousness and compliance.
The proposed refund rules reinforce the point. ICE could grant a school a refund case by case if the DSO removes the recommendation before the student receives the associated employment authorization. Once the employment authorization document is issued, the payment would not be refundable. A refund decision would carry no administrative appeal under the proposed text.
Money can change behavior. That does not mean it distinguishes valid applications from fraudulent ones with legal accuracy. A $70,000 price tests whether someone can finance access and whether an institution believes the student is worth the risk. A documentary review tests whether the eligibility criteria are satisfied. DHS is using the first to intensify the second, but they remain different instruments.
The rule would make schools ration access
The proposal does not require every certified school to recommend every eligible student. It also places no specific restriction on how a school sources the money, subject to other applicable law. DHS acknowledges that schools may pass the financial obligation to students. It also models scenarios in which institutions pay, others help fund the charge, or participation declines because the fee is not paid.
That flexibility does not remove the burden. It turns allocation into institutional policy. A university might absorb the fee for a small group of students, charge every participating student, seek employer commitments, create a need-based fund, limit recommendations by program, or stop offering OPT support. Each choice produces a different population of students with practical access to the same nominal federal benefit.
The proposal itself says institutions would need to consider both the cost of participation and the value each student's OPT participation brings to the school. That sentence should receive more attention than the headline number. A DSO's recommendation has traditionally concerned whether the proposed training relates to the student's study and satisfies program requirements. The new framework asks the institution to decide whether the recommendation is valuable enough to justify a $70,000 payment.
Students will make decisions earlier in response. OPT is part of the value proposition many international students evaluate when selecting a U.S. school. If access varies by institution, degree program, employer sponsorship, or ability to reimburse the school, admissions and financing decisions will reflect those differences long before graduation. NAFSA, an association representing international educators, argues that the proposal would damage enrollment, innovation, and workforce development. That is an advocacy position, not an agency finding, but it identifies the market response DHS must confront in the rulemaking record.
Small institutions face a different equation
DHS reviewed institutions that recommended at least one student for OPT with an authorized employment start date from 2022 through 2024. It identified 2,478 institutions and estimates that 1,389, or 56 percent, are small entities for purposes of its regulatory analysis. Most of those small entities are private nonprofit institutions under the agency's assumptions.
In the first year, DHS estimates that 841 of the 1,389 small entities, or 60.5 percent, would face impacts exceeding 1 percent of annual revenue if the institutions bear the fees. It estimates that 116 small entities would face impacts greater than 20 percent. Those estimates are scenarios, not predictions of what each school will actually pay. DHS acknowledges substantial uncertainty because schools, students, and employers may change behavior or share costs.
The agency considered exempting small institutions and rejected the alternative. Its stated reason is that small entities constitute most of the regulated schools, so an exemption could leave fraud vulnerabilities unaddressed. DHS also considered expanded site visits, reporting requirements, and stricter procedures, but says a fee provides a more immediate response with less administrative burden on the government.
That choice moves the administrative burden rather than eliminating it. A school that continues recommending students must build payment controls, determine who qualifies for institutional support, manage refund risk, and explain the policy to students. A school that exits OPT support may avoid the transaction but lose enrollment revenue and alter the practical value of its programs. The government may administer a simpler rule while regulated institutions absorb a more complicated decision.
The legal argument starts with the administrative record
DHS cites broad statutory authority to administer immigration law, regulate the time and conditions of nonimmigrant admission, oversee certified schools, and authorize employment for noncitizens. The proposal also relies on precedent recognizing the department's authority to set the terms of practical training for F-1 students. A final rule would likely produce litigation over how far those authorities extend, but the proposal alone does not establish that a court will uphold or invalidate the fee.
The sharper administrative-law questions will concern the connection between the stated problem and the chosen amount. DHS says it selected a fee comparable to H-1B charges to deter circumvention and fraud. Commenters can test the evidence for the asserted fraud, whether a school's $70,000 payment is reasonably connected to it, why the amount is calibrated to the first recommendation, and whether less costly alternatives would address the same risks.
The agency has asked for data on behavioral responses, cost sharing, small-entity burdens, declining participation, and alternatives. Schools have a short window to provide more than opposition. Useful comments should identify the number and type of recommendations, current compliance controls, who could legally or practically bear the charge, the effect on tuition and enrollment, refund complications, and what targeted verification measures could address documented abuse.
Students and employers should be equally precise. The proposal is not a present bill and does not itself cancel existing authorization. Individual outcomes would depend on the final rule, its effective date, the school's policy, the student's recommendation history, and subsequent USCIS adjudication. Immigration lawyers should separate those questions before advising clients. AI Esquire is not an immigration news service, and this article is not individualized legal advice.
The price is the policy
The proposal is framed as a fee, but its central function is selection. DHS wants a five-figure payment to make schools more cautious about recommending students for OPT. The agency expects that some recommendations will receive more scrutiny, some costs will move, and some participation will disappear. Those are not side effects. They are how the proposal is designed to work.
That makes the legal payer only the beginning of the analysis. A school may write the check. A student may reimburse it. An employer may help. A smaller institution may decline to participate. A wealthier school may reserve support for selected graduates. The regulation would create one federal price and many private systems for deciding who can clear it.
If DHS finalizes the rule, courts may eventually decide whether the agency had authority and adequately justified the result. The public-comment period comes first. The most useful record will not debate whether fraud matters in the abstract. It will ask whether charging a school $70,000 before a recommendation is evidence-based program integrity or simply a new way to ration access to lawful practical training.
The school would owe the government. The student would live with the school's decision about whether the recommendation is worth the price.
Sources and further reading
Primary and industry sources used to support this page. External guidance should be reviewed in context and for your jurisdiction.
- DHS and ICE, Optional Practical Training Fees proposed ruleNotice of proposed rulemaking published October 8, 2026, proposing $70,000 and $30,000 institutional fees, explaining legal authority and policy rationale, modeling economic effects, and setting proposed regulatory text. It is not yet a final rule.
- Reuters, Trump administration plans $70,000 charge for international-student work authorizationOctober 7 report on the proposal, its stated rationale, current OPT process, and expected controversy.
- ICE, Practical TrainingCurrent agency guidance describing pre-completion OPT, post-completion OPT, the STEM extension, the DSO recommendation, Form I-765, and the requirement to wait for employment authorization.
- NAFSA, response to the proposed OPT fee ruleOctober 7 statement opposing the proposal on enrollment, workforce, and innovation grounds. This is stakeholder advocacy, not an agency finding.