If you are a second-year IT services engineer sitting in Bengaluru with a Cornell MEng offer for Fall 2026, and you spent last weekend re-reading the Wall Street Journal report about a proposed $100,000 fee on Optional Practical Training, this post is for you. The number is real, the proposal is real, and the timing is bad. But it is not yet a rule, and how you respond in the next thirty days matters more than the headline itself. This is what a working consultant is telling her Indian applicants this week.
The proposal, cleanly
The Trump administration is reportedly considering a $100,000 fee on foreign graduates who want to work in the United States through the OPT programme, according to a Wall Street Journal report carried by Business Standard on July 31, 2026. OPT is the pathway that lets an F-1 student stay on and work for 12 months post-graduation, with a 24-month STEM extension on top. Today, the fee for the underlying Form I-765 is roughly $470 online, $520 on paper. The proposed fee would multiply that by more than 200x.
The proposal is under review inside DHS. No rule has been published in the Federal Register yet, and no effective date has been set. The Week reported that officials are still discussing the structure and the exemption criteria. That matters, because the difference between a $100,000 fee on every OPT applicant and a $100,000 fee only on the STEM 24-month extension is the difference between "unaffordable for most" and "a hard tax on the tech pipeline".
Three data points frame the impact. Indian students account for roughly half of all STEM OPT participants. India sent more than 3.6 lakh students to US universities in 2024-25. And the average all-in cost of a two-year US MS or MBA sits between $120,000 and $250,000 depending on the school. Layering an extra $100,000 at the finish line does not just raise costs; it changes the shape of the return-on-investment calculation for the exact profile that has historically funded US graduate education from India.
If you are heading to a US STEM MS this fall
Your programme end date on the Form I-20 is your first anchor. Because a separate DHS final rule ended the Duration of Status regime and set a four-year cap starting September 15, 2026, your OPT window is already shorter than what your seniors had. The Study in the States FAQ from DHS explains the new fixed-period admission and the extension-of-stay procedure that replaces the old system.
Add the OPT fee proposal on top, and the calculus for a two-year MEng or MS at a $70,000-a-year private university now assumes you may have to pay six figures again just to work for the first year after graduation. If your family is financing the degree through an education loan, ask your loan officer today whether the coverage includes post-graduation work authorisation costs. Most Indian education loans do not. That gap will not appear in your admit letter, but it will appear in your bank account in September 2027.
If you are targeting a US MBA in Round 1 this cycle
The OPT fee, if it becomes rule, hits US MBAs harder than most people realise. A two-year US MBA at a top-15 school runs $220,000 to $270,000 all in. The average base salary for the Class of 2025 at M7 schools was in the $175,000 range, with signing bonuses of $30,000 to $40,000. That first year of post-MBA income was, historically, how Indian graduates paid down their loan and started building US savings.
Add a $100,000 fee at the start of that first job and the payback timeline extends by roughly a year for the median profile. It also changes negotiation leverage: an Indian graduate who has to pay $100,000 to keep working is not going to walk away from a lowball offer with the same confidence as one who does not.
If your Round 1 target list this month includes both US and European programmes, this is the moment to revisit that split. INSEAD, IESE, HEC, LBS, IMD, and Cambridge Judge do not carry the OPT fee overhang. The post-MBA work authorisation in France, the UK, and the Netherlands is not free of political risk either, but the current trend line is more favourable and the base cost is lower.
What this means for Indian applicants
Three moves matter in the next thirty days. First, if you are already admitted for Fall 2026, do not withdraw based on a proposal that is not yet a rule. The financial and career damage of forfeiting an admit for a headline is larger than the expected loss from the fee, given the current uncertainty. If you defer, most schools will not hold your spot, and reapplying is not costless.
Second, if you are applying in this cycle for a 2027 start, build a real European alternative into your list before Round 1 closes. Do not treat INSEAD or IESE as a hedge you fill in later. A serious European application takes six to eight weeks of essay work. Our career-counselling engagements this month have been almost entirely about rebalancing US-heavy target lists toward Europe and Singapore, with a specific eye on programmes that fund international students well.
Third, run the honest ROI number now, with and without the $100,000 fee. If the payback timeline moves from three years to four or five years, the answer to "which programme should I attend" may change. This is exactly the arithmetic our Trajectory clients are stress-testing this month.
The proposal will follow the normal rulemaking path: Federal Register publication, comment period, final rule, effective date. That is a nine to fifteen month sequence at minimum. But applicants are being asked to make deposit decisions now, based on incomplete information. That asymmetry is the actual problem.
Common questions applicants are asking
Is the $100,000 OPT fee a rule I have to plan around today? No. It is a proposal under review inside DHS. No Federal Register notice, no comment period, no effective date. But applicants making deposit decisions this week should model both scenarios, since the earliest a rule of this size could take effect is late 2027.
Will the fee apply to all OPT or only STEM extensions? Unclear. Reports name the OPT programme broadly, but the internal DHS discussion has not been made public. If it applies only to the STEM 24-month extension, MBAs are hit less hard than MS students in STEM fields.
Should I switch from a US MBA to a European MBA because of this? Only if the European programme is a real fit for your career goals. Do not swap for tax reasons alone. But if you were already 60-40 on US versus Europe, this is a reason to look harder at INSEAD, IESE, LBS, and IMD before Round 1.
What about H-1B? Is that also getting more expensive? Yes. A separate $100,000 fee on H-1B petitions is already the subject of a court challenge in the US. The OPT fee proposal is on top of that. Both signal the same direction of travel for legal work-based immigration.
If I am already on OPT, does this affect me? Not immediately. Any final rule would have an effective date and would likely apply to new applications from that date forward. But if you are planning to apply for the STEM extension in 2027 or 2028, model the higher fee into your savings plan starting this month.
Related reading
- Chip Roy's H-1B bill and what it means for Indian MBA applicants
- Which country should I do my MBA abroad in for 2026?
- Career counselling for Indian applicants navigating US policy risk
Source verification: August 5, 2026. Next review: January 1, 2028. The proposal status may change; check official DHS releases and Federal Register notices for the current rule text.