On April 30, 2020, Federal Student Aid (FSA), in partnership with the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS), announced their new requirements for 2020 Classification of Instructional Program (CIP) Code reporting 
. Since the announcement, the Clearinghouse has been diligently working on a phased approach to addressing the requirements to keep our institutions in compliance. We are excited to announce the release of Phase 1 of our 2020 CIP Code enhancement, which includes the following functionality:
- For those schools that have converted the enrollment reporting data they report to the Clearinghouse, from the 2010 NCES Lookup table to the 2020 NCES Lookup Table values, the Clearinghouse will auto-remediate unchanged CIP Codes (those with the same value in both the 2010 and 2020 NCES Look-Up Tables) to the 2020 CIP Year/CIP Code combination, upon receipt of a 2010 value from your institution.
- For those schools that have converted the enrollment data they report to the Clearinghouse from the 2010 NCES Lookup table to the 2020 NCES Lookup Table values, the Clearinghouse will also accept 2020 CIP Year/Code combinations for all CIP code categories (unchanged, moved, deleted) for students who are new to your institution (not previously reported at your institution with 2010 CIP Year/Code information or other enrollment).
If your institution has changed to the 2020 CIP Year/Code values, no additional technical changes are required at this time.
PLEASE NOTE: If your institution has not converted to the 2020 CIP Year/Code tables yet, we are continuing to encourage schools to submit the 2010 CIP Year/Code values while we complete the final two phases of our enhancement. This will ensure all necessary functionality is in place when your institution does convert to the 2020 NCES Lookup tables. As of the date of this announcement, the NSLDS has not provided a date by when institutions are required to convert to the 2020 values for enrollment reporting at this time.
IMPORTANT: FOR INSTITUTIONS PARTICIPATING IN OUR OPTIONAL G FROM DEGREEVERIFY SERVICE
If your institution participates in our G from DegreeVerify service, please continue to report the appropriate 2010 values in your DegreeVerify submissions until further notice. If you do not report the 2010 values, we will be unable to match your DegreeVerify data to your student enrollment data, which could result in a significant uptick in the number of students on your “G-Not-Applied” tab. If you are unable to report the 2010 values in your DegreeVerify transmission, you can continue to send your graduated statuses (pdf) via a Graduates Only transmission, which will create the necessary Graduated status for enrollment and compliance reporting purposes.
If you have questions on this enhancement or the upcoming phases, or other enrollment and compliance reporting concerns, please contact our Compliance & Data Operations team at schoolops@studentclearinghouse.org or 703.742.4200 (select options #7, #2).
The Clearinghouse’s CIP 2020 Enhancement: What to Expect in Phase II & III
Phase II functionality:
- Accept CIP Codes that have been moved or Deleted from the 2010 Look-up Table and have a new assigned value in the 2020 NCES Look-up Table
- Implement the new 004 NSLDS Record Type to allow a student’s program and CIP Year/Code combination to be changed without using the W-Withdrawal or X-Never Attended statuses.
Phase III functionality:
Provide an online user interface with a “move” functionality institutions can use to advise the Clearinghouse when a student has changed one of their unique program identifiers. Selecting “move” will trigger the use of the NSLDS 004 record type and prevent an institution from having to use the W-Withdrawal or X-Never Attended statuses to report certain program change scenarios.
If you have any questions, please contact our Compliance & Data Operations team at schoolops@studentclearinghouse.org or 703.742.4200 (select options #7, #2).