Expert reveals how H1B visa program is harming American college graduates

As the Trump administration takes steps to change the H-1B visa program to favor U.S.-born workers, Skillstorm CEO Justin Vianello supported these efforts in an interview with Fox News Digital while offering his expertise on other issues that need to be addressed through work visas.

Vianello told Fox News Digital that one of the “biggest challenges” the current H1B system faces is the “impact” on college hiring, especially with computer science and computer engineering graduates.

Vianello explained that the unemployment rate among college graduates with those degrees is much higher than the average for all college graduates and that there is an “alarming” level of unemployment among college graduates in IT.

“This basically means they didn’t need degrees for the jobs they currently have, since they’re underemployed,” Vianello said. “How does the H-1B visa program impact this? Well, first, rough estimates are that there are about 730,000 H1B visa holders in the United States and about 550,000 dependents. Most of them, over 70% of them, work in IT.”

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Vianello went on to explain that data shows that H-1B visa holders are paid “significantly less” than their counterparts in similar IT roles, giving them an advantage with employers looking to pay less.

“I think it goes a little broader than that,” Vianello said. “In addition to competing with H1V visa holders, university graduates, especially in IT, are also competing with OPT visa holders. This is optional practical training, which is basically an extension of the F1 visa, which is a student visa, which allows you, if you are a STEM graduate, to work in the States.” United States for three years after your graduation.

“Now, OPT visa holders don’t pay Social Security or Medicare taxes, so they’re automatically 15% cheaper, and typically 42% less paid, than their American counterparts. So, as a college graduate, you’re fighting this three-headed monster. You’re graduating with student debt, and you have H1B visa holders and OPT visa holders who have the ability to accept “Your job costs a lot less to the employer, and then you compete with the third one, which is the ability for the employer to simply do that work overseas.”

Many technology companies have adopted the H-1B visa program, which allows U.S. companies to hire foreign workers in specialized professions, but critics of the program say H-1B holders are often chosen over U.S. citizens for jobs. One reason for this is that foreign workers are tied to their employers via the H-1B visa – where the company has to sponsor the visa – so leaving a job could ultimately result in foreign workers losing their visa and their ability to legally remain in the country.

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The US Capitol building is seen in Washington, DC (Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“The reason I’m in America with so many important people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of H1B,” Tesla and Space Angry about this issue.

“The intent was good in terms of bringing in people with skills and retaining people who acquire skills and study at universities in the United States,” Vianello said. “But the outcome for university graduates competing for these roles has been really bad.”

Earlier this year, the Trump administration She revealed a suggestion It is designed to nudge employers toward offering higher salaries or retaining H-1B applications for jobs that require advanced skills. The rule change, officially published in the Federal Register, came just days after President Donald Trump signed a proclamation imposing a $100,000 fee for H-1B visa applications.

The $100,000 fee — a one-time fee that only applies to new H-1B petitions — will go into effect in the next annual lottery, the system the U.S. government uses to select applications once the annual visa cap has been reached.

“The whole idea is that big tech or other big companies don’t train foreign workers. They have to pay the government $100,000, and then they have to pay the employee, so it’s not that.” [economical]Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told reporters on Friday when Trump signed the order.

“I certainly think the $100,000 fee on any new apps would go a long way toward changing behavior, but this is focused on H1B,” Vianello told Fox News Digital.

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President Donald Trump signs an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Friday, September 19, 2025. (Aaron Schwartz/CNB/Bloomberg/Getty Images)

“We’ve recently seen quite a bit of news about changes to the OPT visa program as well in terms of limiting the number of visas and limiting the countries you come from. That’s going to have a big impact on the flow of people coming in as well. And so I think these measures will start to change the behavior of a lot of employers.”

H1B proponents’ argument that the United States brings in the “best and brightest” is a sentiment that Vianello rejects.

“In the last 18 months, according to Layoffs.fyi, these large companies have laid off 250,000 technology professionals, but at the same time, the maximum number of H1B visas has been secured before the end of 2024 for the entire year 2025, which is 85,000 people,” Vianello explained. “So you’re laying off 250,000 tech workers in the US but you’re applying for the maximum H-1B visa holders, it doesn’t make sense. If there’s a skills shortage, why would you lay off 250,000 people? So you can see the way it’s structured. It’s being used as a labor arbitrage to drive down the technology costs of these big companies.”

Vianello, who came here on a visa, told Fox News Digital that he is not opposed to worker visa programs in general, but stressed that they should not leave American workers behind.

“I fully support using visas to attract top-tier tech experts to the United States — I came here myself on a specialized occupation visa, which required my employer to invest significantly to bring me in,” Vianello said. “What I oppose is the misuse of programs like H-1B and OPT as labor arbitrage tools, which undermines entry-level opportunities for US tech graduates and distorts the talent market.”

Fox News Digital’s Michael Dorgan and Amanda Macias contributed to this report