BENGALURU — Indian aerospace engineering student Sudhanva Kashyap thought he had mapped out everything it would take to get to the United States, only to have his plans upended by Washington’s sudden and expensive change to its skilled worker visas.

Friday’s changes to the prized H-1B visas, which included a new US$100,000 (RM421,000) fee, rattled the tech industry and left US companies scrambling to figure out the implications.

Hasty clarifications from the White House that the new charge would be a one-off payment rather than the annual fee announced by US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Friday only added to the uncertainty.

The fee change rattled students like Kashyap, who hoped to get into an American university and from there the US jobs market.

Kashyap, a 21-year-old from the southern Indian tech hub of Bengaluru, had pictured himself going to a top-tier American university, with Stanford his goal.

“Back when the fee was lower, it was still something that you could pin hopes on, it would be easier to convert the student visa to an H-1B,” Kashyap told AFP.

“I am very disappointed... my main dream is derailed as things stand now,” he said.

H-1B visas allow companies to sponsor foreign workers with specialised skills — such as scientists, engineers, and computer programmers — to work in the United States, initially for three years but extendable to six.

The United States awards 85,000 H-1B visas per year on a lottery system, with India accounting for around three-quarters of the recipients.

Lutnick detailed the new measure as he stood beside Donald Trump in the Oval Office, where the US president also introduced a US$1 million “gold card” residency programme he had previewed months earlier.

Several leading companies quickly advised their employees holding H-1B visas not to leave the country while they figured out the implications. Some who had already boarded planes disembarked for fear they might not be allowed to re-enter.