H-1B visa chaos sends international students into panic

The decision by United States President Donald Trump to hike the fee for the H-1B skilled worker visa to US$100,000 – part of broader changes in US immigration policy – has sent shockwaves through the technology and higher education sectors in the US and created widespread anxiety among students planning future pathways.

Indian and Chinese graduates currently make up the bulk of current H-1B visa holders. According to official statistics from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), 71% of current H-1B visas go to Indian nationals, while Chinese hold almost 12% of these visas.

However, in addition to the stress caused to graduates, existing students and PhD holders also say their longer-term career plans have taken a knock as a result of the visa fee hike. The H-1B visa has long been the most widely available legal pathway for students to make the transition from study to skilled employment in the US, education agents noted.

Nikhil Mudgal, founder and CEO of Lorien Finance, which helps Indian students secure loans for study abroad, said: “Trump’s visa fee hike has heightened concerns over the return on investment in a US education.

Already burdened by high tuition and living expenses, students now face an additional fee, making the study-to-work-to-green card pathway increasingly uncertain. Without assured job sponsorship, many fear the substantial financial commitment may not yield the expected returns.

“For many, studying in the US already means heavy loans or using family savings. The new H-1B visa fee adds uncertainty, making the US less affordable and less attractive. Families with limited financial backup may now choose cheaper, more stable countries over the prestige of a US degree,” Mudgal told University World News.

Most Indian students pay for their US education through expensive loans, counting on working under the US Optional Practical Training (OPT) programme to pay these back.

The OPT programme allows international students graduating from US universities to work in the country for up to 12 months in a job related to their course of study. Graduates with STEM degrees can get a 24-month extension, which adds up to 36 months of work.

OPT attractiveness to ‘diminish’

Education consultants are counselling international students to plan their careers carefully and look at alternate career choices. The OPT programme continues to permit temporary work in STEM fields for up to three years, but without a well-defined pathway to long-term residency, the attractiveness of OPT might diminish, they said.

A masters-level Indian student currently studying in the US, requesting anonymity, said: “When I came to America the plan was simple: study, get some experience, pay back my loan, and fulfil my American dream. But if there is a US$100,000 fee, firms may decide against recruiting foreign students. Why spend so much money when they can recruit an American for a lesser amount?”

However, some believe the US will remain an option for a select group of students.

“The US will continue to be an aspirational destination, especially for STEM talent. But the recent H-1B petition fee hike means students aiming for long-term careers will be more conscious of the return on investment in a US degree,” Praneet Singh, associate vice-president for university partnerships-study abroad at upGrad, told University World News.

“This will likely prompt a recalibration. Students are now evaluating which roles and industries are more likely to sponsor H-1B talent and are adjusting their study plans, programme choices, and university selection accordingly. The ambition to study in the US is not fading, but decisions are becoming more informed and future-proof.”

Chinese students panic

Opinions were sharply divided on the impact of the new rule among Chinese international students.

On the popular Chinese social platform Xiaohongshu, or RedNote, netizens described a whirlwind of emotions ranging from confusion to panic, frustration and anger, particularly as the original announcement on 19 September appeared to refer to all H-1B visa holders, and universities and companies in the US advised students and employees (with existing H-1B visas) who were out of the US to return to the country before the implementation date of 21 September.

While the White House later clarified that the policy would apply only to new applications – “not renewals, and not current visa holders”, the reassurance came too late for some. Many netizens said they had rushed back to the US in a panic, only to learn of the clarification afterwards.

“It struck me like lightning,” said one netizen, who cancelled her wedding in China to return urgently to Seattle.

“I felt completely paralysed when I saw this news upon landing,” wrote another who had secured the visa just two months earlier and travelled home to visit family.

Some Chinese netizens argued that heightened policy uncertainty would discourage companies from hiring foreign workers. “Do you think the company will still process H-1Bs in the future? Even if you are in the US, they will only directly hire Americans,” read one of the most upvoted comments on RedNote, which received hundreds of likes.

Some visa holders responded with sarcasm, self-deprecatingly referring to themselves as “H-1B slaves” shackled by the visa scheme and the policy volatility of the Trump administration.

“Many people began to clearly realise that the United States is making policies maliciously, purely for the purpose of torturing H-1B holders, and without justification,” wrote a US-based Chinese influencer who is also an H-1B visa holder in one of the platform’s most-liked posts.

“[It’s] a compliance test, just to see how much people can endure,” another user remarked on RedNote.

However, some netizens saw the new fee as reducing competition for Chinese applicants. “Those most affected will be those from offshore India who participate in the lottery and then come to the US after winning,” read a post. “This will reduce the number of participants in the lottery, benefiting international students in the US.”

The US Department of Homeland Security typically awards a maximum of 85,000 H-1B visas each year to companies and other US employers who apply under a lottery system. Universities and non-profit research organisations are exempt from this cap.

Intent to ‘create chaos’

Sudhanshu Kaushik, founder and executive director of the North American Association of Indian students, told India Today TV: “At first I thought this is an ‘America first’ policy. They're trying to give more Americans jobs.

“Now that I look back, now that I see the clarification, what is clear to me is that there was an intent to create chaos. There was an intent to create distrust and atmosphere among Indians that are H-1Bs, that [there is] a sentiment that you don't belong here, and that [with] a stroke of a pen from the executive office, from an executive order, you can disrupt people’s lives.

“Now … they've clarified, but that distrust and that disbelief, to be honest, has already seeded in. So, I think, first of all, people are going to really reevaluate that. Is it worth it?

“I think they're going to find other opportunities in Canada. They're going to try to find opportunities in the UK. They're going to try to find opportunities in the Gulf. They're going to try to make sure that they can stabilise, they can have a stable life and be able to work where they feel valued.”

India's Ministry of External Affairs reacted with balanced alarm, saying it is studying the implications of the planned fee. The ministry pointed out that the movement of skilled talent has traditionally provided for technological development and economic growth in both countries. It also warned that this action would have “humanitarian consequences” by impacting families.

Tech, HE sector in shock

Ryan Allen, associate professor of comparative and international education and leadership at Soka University of America, writing on the College Towns website, said the US$100,000 fee announcement had “sent shock through the tech sector and higher education”, noting that some of the panic stemmed from the proclamation’s “thin explanation or detail”.

But Allen noted the discourse around the visa often revolves around the tech sector, which “gobbles the bulk of H-1Bs”, and which he pointed out was the main target of accusations around the hiring of cheap professionals from abroad.

In the 2024 fiscal year, almost 64% of H-1B approved applications or renewals came from the tech sector according to a report from USCIS to Congress on “Characteristics of H-1B Speciality Occupation Workers”, which cited 255,000 approvals for the tech sector out of a total of 400,000.

For the education sector, there were almost 24,000 H-1B approvals in 2024, while other areas like social sciences or mathematical and physical sciences could include university faculty for teaching and research in these subjects, Allen noted.

For example, Stanford University received the most H-1B approvals for 2025, with 500 visas in the education category. “The rest of the list is full of other top research and flagship universities,” Allen pointed out, referencing the USCIS’s H-1B Employer Data Hub.

These included the University of Michigan with 359 H-1B approvals, the University of Wisconsin, Madison, with 232 H-1B approvals, and the universities of Maryland, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Columbia and the University of California, San Francisco, with over 200 H-1B approvals each so far in 2025.

International collaboration ‘at risk’

Kevin Kinser, professor of education policy studies at Pennsylvania State University, described proposed changes to H-1B visas as potentially “devastating” for international collaboration, while noting “the situation is still in flux from what I understand, and it's still not completely clear what's going to happen”.

H-1B visas are used to hire international faculty, he said. If the changes come into place “that will be truly devastating for institutions trying to maintain global status”, as well as affecting pathways for international PhD students seeking academic and research jobs, Kinser told University World News.

“US universities right now are exempt from the limits on H-1B visas that private companies are subject to,” Kinser explained. “There’s a lottery for private companies, but universities can hire outside of that.”

“The question is: Are the changes to these H-1B visas only for the lottery versions, or are they for everyone? And right now, the best guess is that they would be for everyone. So universities, in general, will essentially be prohibited from hiring international faculty and staff because very few institutions are going to be able to afford the US$100,000 fee as it comes forward.

“It is really difficult to imagine how many institutions would do that at the scale that we've been used to in terms of hiring international faculty,” Kinser said.

“If a PhD student is coming to the United States, they get networked into the US ecosystem and have designs to then become employed in the United States, it would be much less likely for them to be able to fulfil those aspirations because the US$100,000 fee to sponsor them for an H-1B would be prohibitive for most companies and most universities too,” he pointed out.

“Just think about the number of Indian faculty we have in our colleges of engineering, for example. Virtually all of those would have come in on H-1B visas, at least for a period of time, before getting a more permanent visa.”