New H-1B visas — often for engineers and people from other specialized fields — now cost $100,000. The White House says the intent behind the change is to push companies to hire Americans first.  

One of the risks here, however, is that entrepreneurship suffers. Erik Gordon is a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. He joined “Marketplace Morning Report” host David Brancaccio to talk through some of the impacts of the new visa fee. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

David Brancaccio: You've been thinking about how the new rule on the skilled visas percolates into industry. People should understand it's not necessarily an applicant somewhere in the world paying the six-figure new fee. It would often be what you think of companies.

Erik Gordon: Yeah, the companies put up the money, and big companies that can afford $100,000 — a lot more than the smaller companies can afford it — will get a new advantage.

Brancaccio: So, you've been doing the math here in your head, and if you're giant, this extra fee may not be welcome, but you could easily digest it.

Gordon: You can easily pay it. And if you're one of the big tech companies, you have another out: You probably have offices outside the U.S. where you can hire workers, instead of bringing them to the U.S. Small companies don't have offices outside the U.S.; they don't have offices in India or Canada. They have to import people if they can't find U.S. workers with the right skills.

Brancaccio: So, I'm hearing from you here a concern that this tilts the playing field in favor of the incumbents — the big getting a new advantage.

Gordon: I talked to a couple of people at smaller, mid-sized companies — the kind of companies that are funded by venture capital — and they're very worried. They don't have $100,000 per worker, and they don't have an office in Bangalore.

Brancaccio: All right, so hire some U.S.-based workers with nice, shiny engineering degrees to do the work.

Gordon: That's what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to do that instead of using H-1Bs, unless you can't find those workers. And in a lot of engineering and tech fields, you really can't find enough of those workers here.

Brancaccio: I mean, I've seen the statistics. I mean, there is a mismatch between the number of people coming out of STEM programs and what U.S. industry needs. For instance, I saw the figures for the microchip industry.

Gordon: Yeah, it's really tough. We do not have enough homegrown STEM students, especially at the graduate level. And it's something that, you know, we've been solving with a Band-Aid, the H-1Bs, but maybe we need to rethink a few other things so that we produce more folks here.

Brancaccio: We talk about being a country that embraces entrepreneurship. We talk about being a country that wants to look out for smaller businesses. But you see a policy here that seems to be cutting in a different direction.

Gordon: Every politician during an election year runs around telling audiences that small businesses are the backbone of America and that they support small businesses. Maybe not so much.