Implementation of 2020 CIP Codes in Federal Student Aid Systems

Author
Federal Student Aid
Subject
Implementation of 2020 CIP Codes in Federal Student Aid Systems

We would like to remind the community that the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has updated the Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) codes for 2020. The 2020 CIP codes list of eligible majors and their corresponding CIP code values is available on the NCES website at nces.ed.gov/ipeds/cipcode.

In this announcement, we provide high-level information about operational implementation of the 2020 CIP codes in Federal Student Aid systems and describe upcoming communications that will provide system-specific details about the changes.

Impact on the COD System

With the implementation of the 2020–21 Award Year in the COD System on April 26, 2020, schools must use the 2020 CIP codes list for all programs for the 2020–21 Award Year and forward. In addition, the CIP Code Year value, along with the CIP code, will be required by the COD System for the 2020–21 Award Year and forward for all Pell Grant, Direct Loan, and TEACH Grant records.

Detailed information about the April 26th COD System update will be provided in an Electronic Announcement, to be posted in the next several weeks to the Information for Financial Aid Professionals (IFAP) website.

Impact on EDExpress

EDExpress for Windows 2020–2021, Release 2.0, scheduled for release in late April 2020, will be updated to require a CIP Code Year value (in CCYY format) in the Program Profiles setup dialog box to save a record. The CIP Code Year field will also continue to be required in the CIP Codes Setup dialog box.

Note: If you use the prior year import feature to pull your Program Profiles setup forward from EDExpress 2019–2020 to EDExpress 2020–2021, be aware that any profiles with a blank CIP Code Year value in the prior year’s database will be set to inactive in EDExpress 2020–2021. To remove the inactive designation, update the CIP Code Year to 2020 (or the applicable CCYY value corresponding to the CIP Code) in Program Profiles setup and save the change.

We will communicate additional EDExpress 2020–2021, Release 2.0 information with the posting of the software in late April on the Software and Other Tools page of the IFAP website (https://ifap.ed.gov/software-and-other-tools).

Impact on the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS®)

In late April 2020, NSLDS enrollment reporting will be updated to allow the reporting of 2020 CIP codes via batch, the NSLDS Enrollment Spreadsheet Submittal process, and the Enrollment Maintenance page of the NSLDS Professional Access website.

A school may continue to report 2010 CIP codes to NSLDS until the school is prepared to report 2020 CIP codes. When the school is ready, the school will update the CIP Year to 2020. However, once the school has certified a program with 2020 CIP on NSLDS, a new error will be produced if the school reports a 2010 CIP code for the same program.

NSLDS will be enhanced so that when a school reports a program with a 2020 CIP Year and the same school-reported 2010 CIP Year program already exists in the database (all program identifiers except CIP Year are identical), the active enrollment history from the 2010 CIP program will be transferred to the 2020 CIP program.

Monitor the NSLDS Reference Materials section of the IFAP website for forthcoming communications and guidance about these changes, including an NSLDS Newsletter and new and updated NSLDS record layouts. An updated NSLDS Enrollment Reporting Guide will be available later this year.

Contact Information

We hope this information will assist schools and software vendors as they continue preparing for the upcoming changes.

If you have questions regarding the updates to the COD System, contact the COD School Relations Center at 1-800-848-0978 or by email at CODSupport@ed.gov.

If you have questions regarding the updates to EDExpress, contact CPS/SAIG Technical Support at 1-800-330-5947 or by email at CPSSAIG@ed.gov.

If you have questions regarding the updates to NSLDS, contact the NSLDS Customer Support Center at 1-800-999-8219. You can also contact Customer Support by email at nslds@ed.gov.