As I sat at my desk, about to begin my shiny new internship with Los Angeles magazine, I encountered unwelcome news: Curricular Practical Training, a form of institutionally awarded authorization that international students have used to work off-campus for the past 50 years, will no longer be available to most of us. 

This crackdown on CPT began with a letter sent by the United States Student and Exchange Visitor Program to all SEVP-certified U.S. universities Aug. 12. In it, SEVP requested stricter enforcement of CPT qualifications, limiting its use to students for whom “without [CPT], they would be unable to complete their degree.” 

Most University programs rarely mandate CPT; incredibly few of the over 100 undergraduate majors at USC actually require internships. Yet, in an industry climate where securing job offers without prior work experience is virtually impossible, it’s inaccurate to argue that CPT isn’t integral. By overlooking the value of CPT for international students, SEVP may have failed to consider the impact of losing students who won’t want to study in the U.S. without it. 

When I was a senior in high school applying to colleges, a factor I considered substantially was whether I could gain valuable fieldwork experience in the country I would choose to study in. This was especially important to me because my home country lacked the professional experience I sought; in another country, I could have the rare opportunity to pursue my dreams. My friends similarly chose their countries of study based on their future professional paths. 

The incoming class of international students, unable to pursue the opportunities we coveted, might be deterred from American colleges. International student enrollment has already declined in the past year, during which the Trump Administration has consistently made unpopular changes to nonimmigrant visas. 

The Association of International Educators estimated that international students’ economic contributions to the U.S. economy dropped by $1.1 billion from the 2023-24 to the 2024-25 academic year. The monumental economic downturn equated to the loss of 23,000 jobs for American nationals. 

On Aug. 11, before SEVP’s letter was even sent to universities, NAFSA estimated that the U.S. economy stood to lose $3.4 billion from the decrease in incoming international students. I imagine that, with CPT on top of it all, the loss will increase tremendously. 

With CPT off the table, international students who still want to pursue off-campus experience will gravitate toward other opportunities that do not require CPT approval. Some will lean toward volunteering with non-profit organizations, some will try to freelance from their home countries during the summer, but others won’t give up on U.S. work experience at all. One of the only remaining realistic ways for the latter to gain experience here is by applying for pre-completion Optional Practical Training. 

On the surface, CPT and pre-completion OPT are practically the same: Both allow a student to work while continuing their studies. But unlike CPT, which is processed by a Designated School Official, OPT is processed at the federal level by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. As such, it requires a roughly $500 application fee. 

While these fees will initially contribute to USCIS’s operating revenue, the Department of Homeland Security has access to the organization’s funds. 

Notably, DHS has recently developed a habit of moving funds from USCIS and its other departments to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. 

All in all, stricter enforcement of CPT regulations, which may seem like a minor change at first, will have a series of butterfly effects. International student enrollment will gradually decline, the U.S. gross domestic product will decrease, the economy will recede and American nationals will lose more jobs. Simultaneously, the government will grow richer. 

Is the U.S. government’s war against immigration truly worth the resources, dreams and hopes of American nationals? 

If you are as tired as I am of being collateral in this battle of hate, advocate for a different future than the homogeneous dystopia we move toward. Luckily, as international students, we have historically overcome harsher challenges before this, and we will eventually create a brighter future. 

Note Dolly Parton’s words: “We can’t just hope for a brighter day; we have to work for a brighter day.”