President Donald Trump caught the upper schooling world unexpectedly on Sept. 19, when he signed a proclamation saying a brand new $100,000 charge for H-1B visas. Earlier than the brand new coverage, employers paid between $2,000 and $5,000 for brand new H-1B petitions, in accordance with the American Immigration Council.
Schools, particularly giant analysis universities, depend on H-1B visas to recruit international college, students and researchers. Stanford College, the College of Michigan and Columbia College all employed over 200 staff via H-1B visas in fiscal 2025.
The brand new charge might impede schools’ capacity to recruit these staff — probably curbing analysis, slowing scientific innovation and even resulting in decreased course choices for college kids, in accordance with increased schooling specialists.
“There’s little question that it’s going to deter world expertise that’s not within the U.S.,” Miriam Feldblum, president and CEO of the Presidents’ Alliance on Increased Schooling and Immigration. “We lose the good thing about their expertise, experience and expertise. It’s not solely a loss for them, it’s simply clearly a loss for campuses and different employers.”
Increased schooling and authorized specialists are nonetheless making an attempt to grasp some parts of the brand new coverage, akin to if schools and different employers can safe exemptions to the $100,000 charge for staff they’d prefer to sponsor. Nevertheless, they shared insights about who the coverage impacts, what might change sooner or later and the way schools can navigate this second.
Which staff are impacted by the $100,000 charge?
When the Trump administration first rolled out the coverage, confusion abounded about which forms of staff would set off the charge. That’s partially as a result of U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick initially stated the charge can be paid yearly, in accordance with Reuters.
However a day after the coverage’s rollout, White Home Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt walked again Lutnick’s remarks and stated on social media that it might be a one-time free for brand new petitions solely. Since then, the Trump administration has supplied steering additional narrowing the coverage’s affect.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration and Providers stated in October that the charge wouldn’t apply to somebody already within the U.S. that’s requesting a change of standing. In line with Joshua Wildes, affiliate lawyer at immigration regulation agency Wildes & Weinberg, that signifies that college students on F-1 and J-1 visas might not be topic to the charge if they’re within the U.S. and are in search of to modify to H-1B standing.
Nevertheless, they must keep inside the U.S. till they safe H-1B standing to keep away from incurring the charge.
“They will should resolve whether or not or not they’re prepared to remain put within the U.S.,” Wildes stated. That would embody forgoing touring to see their households or taking trip outdoors of the nation, Wildes stated.
Those that have already got H-1B visas, nonetheless, can journey outdoors the U.S. and return with out triggering the charge.
Even with the newest steering, schools are nonetheless reeling from the brand new coverage, because it nonetheless applies to new petitions for staff who’re outdoors of the U.S.
No establishment desires to pay the charge, “no matter how small or huge you might be,” Wildes stated. “The smaller ones that do not have the funds, they merely can’t afford it. The larger ones that do have the funds, they do not wish to do it as a result of it is some huge cash.”
The steering stated the U.S. secretary for the Division of Homeland Safety might grant exemptions to the charge for sure staff, although it added they are going to be “terribly uncommon.”
To qualify, the secretary must decide a employee “is within the nationwide curiosity,” doesn’t pose a safety danger to the U.S. and that no American citizen is ready to carry out the function they’d be introduced in to fill. The secretary would even have to find out if requiring the brand new H-1B charge from the sponsoring employer would “considerably undermine” the nation’s curiosity.
USCIS on Thursday referred Increased Ed Dive to the proclamation and current steering when requested for particulars about which staff would qualify for these exceptions. It added that these requests are dealt with by DHS and never USCIS.
Will the $100,000 charge keep in place for the upper schooling sector?
Practically three dozen increased schooling organizations, led by the American Council on Schooling, urged DHS Secretary Kristi Noem in an Oct. 23 letter to carve out a sectorwide exemption to the $100,000 charge for schools and universities.
Within the letter, ACE President Ted Mitchell argued that the H-1B staff do work “essential to the U.S. financial system and nationwide safety.” He pointed to their work contributing to analysis, offering medical care and educating the nation’s college students.
“We all know that the Trump administration does think about high-skilled immigration to be crucial,” stated Sarah Spreitzer, ACE’s vp and chief of employees for presidency relations. “We’re hiring high-skilled college, employees and researchers.”
Neither DHS nor the White Home answered whether or not Noem would grant a sectorwide exemption to the charge for schools and universities.
A White Home official contended that international staff undercut wages in academia and that the change protects Individuals in search of careers within the subject.
Even when the sector cannot win a standing exception, the coverage could possibly be disrupted by two current authorized challenges.
The primary was filed in early October by teams representing the healthcare, Okay-12, non secular and better schooling sectors, together with the American Affiliation of College Professors. They warned that the brand new coverage might result in “catastrophic setbacks” to U.S. analysis and urged a federal decide to declare the $100,000 charge illegal.
Later that month, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce likewise sued over the coverage, arguing it was a “plainful illegal” enlargement of govt authority. The Chamber requested an appeals court docket to dam the charge and vacate any company actions taken thus far to implement it.
What can schools do now?
Spreitzer famous that the brand new coverage is yet one more problem for schools making an attempt to answer shifting federal insurance policies and predicted the upper schooling sector’s general hiring will fall.
“I feel that that is simply going to be one piece of it,” Spreitzer stated.
However increased schooling and authorized specialists famous that schools can take a number of steps to navigate the brand new $100,000 charge.
For one, schools must be proactive in the event that they plan to about in search of exemptions for people they need’d prefer to sponsor for H-1B visas. “Universities have to plan forward to make these arguments to point out that the those that they wish to rent are eligible for that exception,” Wildes stated.
Authorized experience is required to make these arguments, Wildes added.
“You would possibly solely get one chew on the apple,” Wildes stated. “Placing collectively an argument {that a} international employee’s presence within the U.S. is deemed within the nationwide curiosity is troublesome.” Wildes added that schools have to “give themselves time” to work on these arguments.
Some schools are additionally taking a look at alternate options to the H-1B visa program such because the O visa, which Spreitzer famous is also known as the “Einstein visa.”
The O-1A visa is reserved for these with “a unprecedented capacity within the sciences, schooling, enterprise, or athletics,” whereas the O-1B is reserved for these “with a unprecedented capacity within the arts” or achievement within the movie trade, in accordance with USCISC. Though the O visa is one other pathway to convey a employee to the U.S., it has limitations.
“That is a visa that is granted for somebody that has distinctive expertise which can be acknowledged on a worldwide stage, and so they often have a really excessive bar to display that,” Spreitzer stated. “You are not going to have the ability to rent an early profession college or researcher below an O visa.”
In the meantime, Feldblum advisable that schools have interaction with their policymakers each on the native and federal degree and educate them concerning the “opposed affect” the charge has on the sector.
“As a result of if the aim is to spur American financial progress and to assist American staff, this doesn’t do it,” Feldblum stated.
