Week in review: A $100K fee for OPT?

Most-clicked story from the week: 

In recent court documents, a handful of federal agencies said they cut grants held by University of California researchers that expressed viewpoints that the Trump administration disfavored. To do so, they relied heavily on keyword searches, with targeted terms ranging from “advocate” to “women.” We compiled a table of those keyword searches here. 

Number of the week: 36

The number of colleges and universities that backed Harvard University in its legal challenge against the Trump administration over its attempts to cut vast sums of the Ivy League institution’s federal grant funding. “Wholesale termination of federal research funding at just one leading university can have devastating effects on scientific progress and the public welfare,” they wrote in an amicus brief. 

A $100K fee for the OPT program?

• Trump administration officials are considering implementing a $100,000 fee for international students to participate in the Optional Practical Training program, which allows them to work in the U.S. for up to three years after graduation, the Wall Street Journal reported. 
• A $100,000 fee for the OPT program could significantly hamper international enrollment. The vast majority of college officials surveyed last year said they believe international students would choose other countries for their education without OPT. Roughly 294,000 international students participated in the OPT program during the 2024-25 academic year, according to data from the Institute of International Education. 
• The Journal’s reporting comes on the heels of a federal court in June striking down the Trump administration’s $100,000 fee for the H-1B visa program, which allows U.S. employers to hire highly skilled foreign workers for specialized positions. 

A group of higher ed bills advances: 

• The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions advanced a bill Thursday that would block the U.S. Department of Education from shifting some of its responsibilities to other agencies, including its office overseeing postsecondary education. 

• Lawmakers on the panel also advanced the College Transparency Act, which would lift a ban on the federal government collecting student-level data. Mamie Voight, president and CEO of the Institute for Higher Education Policy, praised the move in a statement Thursday, arguing the bill would fill in data gaps about student outcomes and help “students make informed decisions about where to enroll.”

• The RISE Act, which is intended to make it easier for college students with disabilities to obtain accommodations, also advanced out of the committee.