MIS Department Receives New CIP Code for Our Master’s Program.

May 17, 2009

We are excited to hear that final approval was granted on May 14, 2009, by the Arizona Board of Regents' Executive Director to change the CIP Code for our Master's program in MIS effective summer 2009. The new CIP Code for the Master’s program in Management Information Systems will be 11.0103 (Information Technology). It will take several months for the appropriate changes to be made to systems, records and publications.

What is a CIP code? CIP stands for Classification of Instructional Programs. It's a coding scheme developed and maintained by the US Department of Education, National Center on Education Statistics, Integrated Postsecondary Data System, to classify and code academic disciplines. The codes are then used to characterize data on student majors, degrees granted, courses taught, employees, etc.

Why is this CIP code change important to our international Master’s students? In essence, it gives our international students and their post-graduate employers’ the opportunity to work together longer.

Before this code change, international students had only 12 months of time to work for an US company before the company had to file an H-1B*. The code change now allows a student to work in the county for 29 months. This extended time allows the employer a longer time to evaluate the post graduate student to determine if they should proceed ahead with a full offer and H-1B status.

(*H-1B is a non-immigrant visa in the United States under the Immigration & Nationality Act, section 101(a)(15)(H). It allows U.S. employers to temporarily employ foreign workers in specialty occupations).

Background information
On April 8, 2008, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published an interim final regulation, effective immediately, which significantly changes Optional Practical Training (OPT) for F-1 students. Click the link below to read detailed information about the portion of the rule regarding the 17-month extension of OPT for majors with certain CIP codes.

http://internationalstudents.arizona.edu/pageview.aspx?id=19861

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