Optional Practical Training

And so when the rule got tighter, less than two weeks later, nobody wanted to be the test case.

Now, there is supposed to be a backup called OPT, optional practical training.

This is the other way these students are allowed to work, and you can use some of it before you graduate.

So the obvious move is that CBT got closed, so use OPT, the optional practical training, for the summer instead.

But you get 12 months of OPT in total.

That's all you ever get at that level of school.

And every month you use before you graduate comes out of those same 12.

And so when the rule got tighter, less than two weeks later, nobody wanted to be the test case.

Now, there is supposed to be a backup called OPT, optional practical training.

This is the other way these students are allowed to work, and you can use some of it before you graduate.

So the obvious move is that CBT got closed, so use OPT, the optional practical training, for the summer instead.

But you get 12 months of OPT in total.

That's all you ever get at that level of school.

And every month you use before you graduate comes out of those same 12.

Yeah, absolutely.

And to that point, Steve, OPT, Optional Practical Training, which is a program most Americans don't even know about.

If you come here as a foreign student, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of foreigners, many of them from China, of course, from our enemy, you come here as a foreign student, you are automatically allowed to work in the United States once you graduate.

It's at least a year.

There's no law really governing it.

And I remind your listeners, it subsidizes, in a way, the employment of foreign workers at the expense of Americans.

You graduate from an American college, I mean, this optional practical training for one or three years, and your employer, which would normally be the case, doesn't have to pay Social Security.

It doesn't have to pay Medicare for you.

SEVIS, of course, is the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System.

This will also impact or affect travel, extensions of stay, a transfer to another school, educational objectives, later education or degrees, the optional practical training, STEM OPT, and possible employment while the application is pending.

By way of quick background, the rule was published on July 17th of 2026, scheduled to take effect 60 days later on September 15th, 2026.

Litigation is pending and the effective date could be affected by a court order or a later federal register notice or maybe congressional review or the USCIS or ICE or SEVIS taking some other kind of action.

schools with this change? Absolutely, Sheila.

This is a major practical change.

So what all of the schools, DSOs, and their international students are used to is to watch the I-20 form and make sure that they see this record is valid and the I-20 is not expired, or if the student is on OPT, they're EAD has not expired and or they're in the grace period.

However, you know, this is not enough anymore.

And then we'll talk about what people should be doing as a result of this while it's in process.

And then we'll close with a quick segment about another rumored $100,000 fee that was in the news about OPT, because that is a completely separate rule that we don't even know if it's proposed yet or not.

It's a little questionable at this moment.

Yeah, but so far, Emily, I feel like the news has been right when they hear a rumor on $100,000.

ICE doesn't vet applicants for admission.

They're not sitting at the port of entry.

And then we'll get back to that SCVP shortfall because that's relevant to OPT and the potential fees that are going to be added to that.

Yeah.

Remember, you're paying student loans for your children.

As a foreign student in 30 days, you could apply what is called CPT or OPT, which means it's curriculum practical training or occupational practical training.

You go down to an office in the school and they give you this paper and they say, OK, you qualify in 30 days now.

You probably didn't, and most of these kids didn't even pay the full tuition, by the way.

But let me just say, Trump so far has been a complete disaster on the foreign labor issue.

He's been affirmatively bad, unfortunately.

I mean, he fought to preserve that CPT program, the OPT program, that's another student visa program that allows people to work on student visas when they're not even in school.

And he fought to preserve the...