What international students need to know about study and work visas in the United States
- A shifting immigration environment in the US is making it more difficult for students and institutions to understand the nuances of new study and work visa proposals and rules
- At the same time, international students are facing significantly heightened scrutiny, which could affect their status, ability to change status, and ability to re-enter the United States after international travel.
- In addition, questions swirl around the Optional Practical Training (OPT) programme and the H-1B visa class
- International students and institutions are looking for strategies to best protect themselves in the face of uncertainty
- Immigration law specialists Fragomen offer clear advice to current and prospective F-1 students
The current political climate in the United State has spurred a flurry of proposals and rules affecting the rights of foreign visitors, students, and other visa holders to enter, work in, or immigrate to the US. The overall policy environment is confusing both to current international students and prospects.
A new resource from immigration law firm Fragomen called “2026 International Travel Planning for F-1 Students” offers helpful guidance on what international students should consider when applying to a US institution, changing visa status, or leaving the US while on a visa or during a visa transition period (e.g., from an F-1 to OPT, or OPT to H-1B). In brief, Fragomen emphasises that this is a very risky time for international students to leave the US because of a real chance that they might not be permitted re-entry.
In today’s article, we feature Fragomen’s advice, and we also provide an update on the broader immigration landscape in terms of its implications for international students, higher education institutions, and employers. In particular, we look at why proposed changes to Optional Practical Training (OPT) and study duration limits – as well as new H-1B rules – pose challenges for US colleges’ international recruitment.
The golden pathway
The majority of international students in the US (57%) are in STEM fields: science, technology, engineering, and math. Many of them choose their academic focus to become eligible for the programme called STEM OPT (STEM Optional Practical Training). STEM OPT:
- Allows international students to work in the US for up to three years (rather than the one-year term permitted for regular OPT participants).
- Gives them three chances to be selected through the H-1B work visa lottery system (a significant feature because of the extremely high demand for the limited number of H-1Bs granted each year). The H-1B visa, where applicants are sponsored by US employers, is valid for three years with a possible three-year extension.
In many cases, the pathway envisioned by many international prospects applying to a US university is this: Enrol in a STEM academic programme on an F-1 visa > participate in STEM OPT > apply up to three times for an H-1B visa that allows up to six years of work in the US and then potentially progress to permanent residency from there.
The opportunity to pursue this pathway is central to the decision-making of most prospects considering study in the US. A 2025 survey conducted by NAFSA and the Institute for Progress found that 54% of current international students would not have chosen the US if there was no OPT option. Another survey, the Open Doors Fall Snapshot Survey, found that 92% of US higher institutions believe that international students would choose another destination if OPT were eliminated.
Those survey findings underscore the impact of the OPT programme on an international student’s overall return on investment (ROI) for study in the US. Simply put, participating in OPT helps students to offset the high cost of a US degree, which might otherwise be prohibitive.
The pathway is under pressure
The importance of OPT to US colleges’ international enrolments highlights the massive impact that several recent proposals or rule changes by the Department of Homeland Security may have on institutions’ ability to recruit overseas. These include:
- A proposal to restrict or end the OPT programme. This proposal is currently under review.
- A presidential proclamation requiring an employer to pay a US$100,000 fee for an H‑1B application filed from outside the US after 21 September 2025. This fee is now in place despite multiple legal challenges, some of which are still proceeding through the courts.
- A proposal to impose a fixed period limiting international students’ study visa to no more than four years. This would replace the current Duration of Stay (D/S) system that allows students to remain in the US as long as they are progressing in their academic programmes. A fixed admission period would require students to apply for extensions that they wouldn’t automatically receive, thereby ending their chances of applying for OPT. If an extension were denied, a student would be required to leave the US immediately. This proposal is under review. Almost half (49%) of current students responding to the 2025 NAFSA/ Institute for Progress survey said they would not have enrolled in the first place had Duration of Status been replaced with a fixed period of admission.
Heightened scrutiny for international students
At the core of the current US immigration strategy is the administration’s belief that international students and workers could be a threat to American students and workers and even to national security.
As a result, the administration has shown that it is willing to use different policy levers to make it more difficult for international students to come to the US, and/or to stay after graduation.
For the many international students who want to safeguard their ability to study, work, and potentially immigrate to the US, deciding to leave the country for travel can be risky. Re-entering means dealing with US immigration officers again at a time when the State Department is increasing refusals of visas for unspecified reasons. It can be very difficult for students to challenge refusals from abroad – and for institutions to help them.
Several universities – with the help of legal experts – are counselling their international students to stay in the US for this reason. Fragomen’s resource delves deeply into the risks for particular kinds of students based on their visa status or intended visa progression:
“International students are facing significantly heightened scrutiny, which could affect their status, ability to change status, and ability to re-enter the United States after international travel…F-1 students who have applied for, or are working on, post-completion optional practical training (OPT) or may be the beneficiary of an H-1B cap petition and a request to change status should be aware of the requirements and risks of travelling internationally.”
Fragomen adds: “This is true whether you are in an ongoing course of study, your 60-day grace period, a period of OPT (including a STEM extension), or in the ‘cap gap’ – the period between the end of your course of study or OPT and either the date a timely-filed H-1B change of status on your behalf will take effect, or April 1 (whichever is earlier).”
Fragomen’s guidance goes into great detail to describe best practices for specific types of international students in different visa classes or circumstances.
The destabilising effect
Naavya Shetty, an Indian student finishing up her degree at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, spoke with IPM News in October 2025:
“What we [international students] felt would happen was that all these companies would develop a sense of uncertainty about hiring international students. Because who knows when a new law is going to pass that makes them have to pay a lot more for us than we might actually be ‘worth.’”
Ms Shetty explained: “In order to come here, I had to take a student loan, with a particularly high rate of interest. My parents had to mortgage our house in order for me to be able to take that loan. If I do not manage to get a job, there is quite a lot of burden on me and my family financially. The average graduate student salary [in the US] for my field is estimated to be about 100K, whereas in India, the estimated cost is around 15 to 20 lakhs – equivalent to roughly $17,000 a year.”
Keep the facts in focus
The confusing narrative around the US$100,000 H-1B application fee is daunting for employers who may not understand which applicants are affected and which are not. In fact, the fee currently applies only to new H-1B applicants outside the US. F-1 students are exempted if they secure a job right after finishing school, which means there is no added cost for US employers wanting to hire them.
What’s more, the new rules could actually benefit F-1 international students. Employers who know about the exemption could pivot to hiring an international student graduate instead of a skilled worker outside of the US, since this would allow them to avoid the US$100,000 fee.
Law firm Squire Patton Boggs notes:
“[The new rules] create a sharp strategic divide. US‑based international graduates become far more attractive candidates, while employers may be reluctant to sponsor workers abroad due to the substantial additional cost …
The H-1B program is evolving into a higher cost, higher skill pathway. Employers prepared to invest in top tier talent will remain active participants, while others may pivot to alternative visa strategies or focus on international graduates already in the United States.”
The need for legal advice
Fragomen’s guidance offers exactly the kind of counsel that can seem very elusive for students and institutions alike at this time.
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