Colorado schools that rely on workers from other countries could face staffing difficulties under the Trump administration's implementation of a $100,000 fee for the visa those workers must obtain.
H-1B visas allow U.S. companies to employ foreign workers in tech and other specialized jobs. In education, they could include teachers, professors and researchers.
President Donald Trump in September issued a proclamation implementing a $100,000 fee for new H-1B visa applicants. The fee does not apply to current H-1B visa holders. Historically, the visa fees paid by companies ranged from under $1,000 to a few thousand dollars.
Trump called for American companies to rely on American workers for these roles, making unsubstantiated claims of "abuse" in the H-1B visa program.
The top H-1B employer in Colorado is the University of Colorado system, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data, though CU spokesperson Michele Ames said it is unclear exactly what the USCIS numbers reflect, since it appears only to list the university's Denver campus.
CU has 328 H-1B visa holders across all campuses and system offices in Boulder, Denver, Aurora and Colorado Springs, Ames said. Those people serve in various faculty, staff, research and clinical roles.
"Each one of our visa holders are a valued member of our CU family," Ames said in a statement. "Our ability to deliver world-class education to our more than 67,000 students, successfully compete for $1.7 billion in research funding each year, deliver life-saving treatment to thousands and provide $12.2 billion in economic impact to our state and nation rely -- in part -- on the contributions these individuals make every day."
Schools and universities use H-1B visas to hire for positions that can be difficult to fill, according to Dan Berger, a senior attorney with Path2Papers, a clinic at Cornell Law School that works to connect people who came to the U.S. as minors without authorization with employer-sponsored immigration options.
"I think most colleges and universities want to hire the most qualified person for the position, and often it's something that's very specialized," Berger said. "So it may be that you have the top five people in the world who work on a particular topic are spread out all over the world, and so what it does is ... it takes away a potential pool of talent."
"Confusion and harm"
H-1B visa holders support K-12 education as well. Denver Public Schools is the fifth biggest employer of H-1B visa holders in the state, according to USCIS data. The district's internal tracking system based on school years shows that the district had 117 H-1B visas approved for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 school years.
The fee proclamation has caused "confusion and harm" in the district's recruitment and hiring strategies, district spokesperson Scott Pribble said. The district's visa holders fill high-demand positions, including Spanish bilingual elementary, math, science and special education teachers, and certain special provider roles.
"Our district will not be able to pay this fee for these visas," Pribble said in a statement. "It creates a problem recruiting qualified professionals, often holding multiple advanced degrees and bringing decades of classroom experience."
With over 6,000 teachers in the district, the H-1B visa holders represent just under 2% of classroom staff. Over 30% of students in the district are English-language learners, and 34% of its students are Spanish-speaking.
Maintaining an appropriate staffing level "is critical for the success of our students," Pribble said, adding that the H-1B visa program has been imperative in supporting positions that teach students and offer legally mandated student services.
"DPS competes in a constrained labor market for qualified educators and specialized staff," Pribble said. "In that environment, the district relies on all lawful recruiting pathways, including the ability to recruit and retain qualified candidates through the H-1B program for certain hard to fill roles."
Graduate would have to leave
Colorado State University employs 131 H-1B visa holders. Most of those employees are facility or research associates, though some hold staff positions, CSU spokesperson Tiana Kennedy said.
While initially it was unclear what the $100,000 proclamation covered, Berger said, it has since been clarified that it only applies to someone being hired directly from abroad. So, for example, if someone graduates with a Ph.D. from a university in the U.S. and a university wants to hire them, that would be considered a "change of status"and wouldn't require the $100,000 fee.
But the government still has discretion to approve status changes, and while Berger said it previously would do that "pretty freely," it is "looking much more carefully at those cases."
"If a change of status is denied here, then the person would have to leave, and then the $100,000 fee would have to be paid," Berger said.
Since universities hire for the academic year, it is too early to tell how the changes from the Trump administration will affect CU's hiring process, Ames said.
"We will understand much more after we have been able to experience a full hiring cycle under the changes," she said.
The new visa fee is "just one of several hurdles" Denver schools have faced under the Trump administration, Pribble said.
"The frequency of these policy shifts has created a climate of uncertainty, leading many of our teachers to seek urgent guidance," Pribble said. "They are rightfully concerned about how these constant changes affect their professional standing and their families' futures."
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