$100,000 OPT fee plan is bad news for Indian students and the US | Number Theory

America’s international student total was still rising in 2024-25, but the growth was increasingly coming from people who had already left the classroom. The Donald Trump administration in the US is considering a $100,000 fee tied to Optional Practical Training (OPT), which allows foreign graduates to work temporarily in the US after completing their degrees. The proposal follows an appeals court setback to a similar H-1B levy. Unlike direct overseas H-1B recruitment, OPT is the route many large US employers use to hire foreign graduates from American universities before later sponsoring them for work visas. What has been the importance of OPT for foreign students in the US? What is the potential impact of the proposal on Indian students? How will this impact Indian students in the US?US President Donald Trump in New Jersey on Sunday. (AP)$100,000 OPT fee plan is bad news for Indian students and the USIndia is now the biggest source of foreign students in the US For more than a decade, China was the largest source of international students in the US. Both Indian and Chinese numbers fell in 2020-21, but their recoveries soon diverged. India’s count rose from 167,582 that year to 363,019 in 2024-25, more than doubling in four years. China’s, by contrast, recovered only briefly before sliding from 317,299 to 265,919. Indians now make up roughly 31% of all international students in the US, compared with 23% for China. Indians are now the biggest beneficiaries of H-1B visas and, as international students in the US, biggest potential beneficiaries of the OPT route to employment.Enrolments by foreign students in American universities had already begun to lose steam America’s international student total was still rising in 2024-25, but the growth was increasingly coming from people who had already left the classroom. The combined number of undergraduate, graduate and non-degree students fell marginally from the previous year, while graduate enrolment alone declined by nearly 14,000. The headline total nevertheless increased by more than 51,000 because the number of students on OPT rose from 242,782 to 294,253. OPT participants, mostly recent graduates temporarily permitted to work in jobs related to their degrees, consequently accounted for one-quarter of the international student count, up from less than 19% two years earlier and about 12% a decade ago. America’s foreign student population was, in other words, being sustained increasingly by yesterday’s students rather than new enrolments.