Log inSubmit server
College Scorecard MCP Server logo

College Scorecard MCP Server

Searches and analyzes U.S. college costs, programs, earnings, admissions, aid, and outcomes through MCP.

InstallRepositoryWebsite
Full README Compare alternatives Embed widget Claim this listing

Install College Scorecard MCP Server

Pick your client, then add it in one click or paste the config.

STDIONode.js
~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
claude_desktop_config.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "college-scorecard-mcp-server": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@cyanheads/college-scorecard-mcp-server"
      ],
      "env": {
        "SCORECARD_API_KEY": "YOUR_VALUE_HERE"
      }
    }
  }
}

Settings → Developer → Edit Config, merge this into mcpServers, then fully quit and reopen Claude Desktop.

Values are written into the snippet above so you can paste it as is. They never leave your browser.

Install not yet sandbox-tested— we haven't run this command through our automated sandbox yet. Not a red flag; we're working through the catalog.

Overview

The college-scorecard-mcp-server MCP server connects AI clients to U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard data. It provides tools for finding schools and programs, retrieving institutional profiles and earnings, comparing institutions, and calculating debt-to-earnings or net-price-to-earnings ratios. It runs over STDIO or Streamable HTTP and requires a Scorecard API key for API-backed operations. Reach for it when an agent needs structured college research across costs, outcomes, programs, and financial value.

Use cases

  • Find colleges by location, size, acceptance rate, or cost
  • Compare schools across costs, admissions, aid, and outcomes
  • Search programs by field, credential, earnings, or debt
  • Estimate debt-to-earnings and net-price-to-earnings ratios
  • Review historical earnings measures by data-file vintage

Key features

  • School search and institutional profiles
  • Normalized comparisons for two to five schools
  • Program and CIP code discovery
  • Earnings, debt, and award metrics
  • ROI ratio calculations
  • Scorecard field catalog lookup

Tools9

What College Scorecard MCP Server lets your agent do. Expand a tool for its parameters.

Self-reported~373 tokens of context

Security & health

What it can reach and how reliably it runs — from our own checks, not the maintainer’s claims.

ActiveLast checked 1d ago

Recent health check succeeded.

6/6 checks healthy over the last 40d

Supply-chain signal

No high-severity advisories surfaced by our automated scan.

Critical 0High 0Medium 0Low 0

Scanned 15d ago via OSV.dev · @cyanheads/college-scorecard-mcp-server (npm)

Adoption & maintenance

Factual signals from GitHub, npm, and our automated checks — not a rating.

GitHub stars1Stargazers on the source repository.
npm downloads803Package downloads in the last 30 days.
Last commit5d agoMost recent push to the default branch.
Tools exposed9Callable tools this server registers over MCP.
Directory activity2 viewsConfig copies, upvotes, and views on AllMCPs.

How College Scorecard MCP Server works

What college-scorecard-mcp-server does

The college-scorecard-mcp-server MCP server exposes U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard data to MCP-compatible AI clients. Its coverage includes roughly 6,500 institutions and spans costs, admissions, financial aid, demographics, completion, programs, debt, and post-entry earnings. This makes it relevant to the 🎓 Education category for college research, school comparison, and program-level analysis.

School discovery supports filters such as name, state, ownership, degree level, size, acceptance rate, CIP code, ZIP code, distance, and single-sex status. A school profile can return broad institutional data or selected Scorecard fields. Comparisons accept two to five school IDs and produce normalized values, ordinal ranks, and availability information for costs, admissions, outcomes, or aid.

How it works

The college-scorecard-mcp-server MCP server communicates through either STDIO or Streamable HTTP. API-backed tools use the College Scorecard API, while the CIP lookup tool searches 186 curated NCES CIP 2020 four-digit groups offline. The public hosted endpoint is https://college-scorecard.caseyjhand.com/mcp.

School IDs can be discovered with school search and then used with profile, program, earnings, comparison, and value-analysis tools. The server also exposes two resources: scorecard://school/{id} for an institutional profile and scorecard://programs/{id} for school program outcomes. A comparison prompt structures multi-school analysis using Scorecard data.

Several responses distinguish available, unavailable, and privacy-suppressed values. Earnings responses also provide context such as data-file year, entry cohorts, measurement years, and dollar year, which matters when comparing vintages. Program searches paginate schools and may return more program rows than the requested school page size.

Setup and configuration

The package can be launched through the npm package @cyanheads/college-scorecard-mcp-server, including the repository’s documented npx client configurations. The server requires the SCORECARD_API_KEY environment variable for its Scorecard API connection. The repository also documents a Docker image and a hosted MCP endpoint.

Clients can connect using the STDIO or Streamable HTTP transport. When configuring a local client, provide the package command and API key in that client’s MCP server configuration. The API key should be supplied through the environment rather than embedded in prompts or tool arguments.

Tools and capabilities

The college-scorecard-mcp-server MCP server includes these capabilities:

  • Search schools and sort results by supported API fields.
  • Retrieve full profiles or selected fields for one or many school IDs.
  • Compare two to five schools by costs, admissions, outcomes, or aid.
  • Retrieve program earnings, cumulative Stafford and Grad PLUS debt, and IPEDS award counts.
  • Search programs by CIP code, name, credential, state, ownership, cost, earnings, or debt.
  • Retrieve six-, eight-, and ten-year earnings measures, including percentile ranges and gender-specific six-year medians.
  • Calculate debt-to-earnings and net-price-to-earnings ratios, with optional family-income brackets.
  • Look up CIP groups and search the Scorecard field catalog before using custom fields.

Value analysis fetches cost, debt, repayment, and earnings inputs in parallel for one school. Its ratios require positive annual earnings, and it may use the overall net price when the selected income bracket is unavailable. School and program data can also be consumed through the corresponding resources.

Limitations and notes

Scorecard values may be unavailable or privacy-suppressed, and the tools preserve those states rather than treating them as zero. scorecard_get_school accepts up to 1,000 IDs, but only the first 100 distinct IDs are fetched; excess IDs are reported separately. School comparison is limited to two through five IDs and four supported topics.

Program awards represent awards in each pooled debt-cohort year, not the number of students. Program earnings describe median earnings one year after the highest credential, while the earnings tool covers federally aided undergraduate entrants who are working and no longer enrolled, whether or not they completed. Earnings values retain the provider’s dollar basis, so data context should be checked before comparing file vintages.

Read the full README View source on GitHub

Reviews

No reviews yet — be the first to share how it worked for you.

Frequently Asked Questions about College Scorecard MCP Server

college-scorecard-mcp-server is an MCP server that connects AI clients to U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard data. Its main tools search and profile schools, compare institutions, find programs, retrieve earnings, calculate value ratios, look up CIP groups, and inspect available Scorecard fields for college research.

Install it through the documented npm package configuration, using `@cyanheads/college-scorecard-mcp-server` with `npx`, or connect to the documented hosted MCP endpoint. Configure `SCORECARD_API_KEY` for the Scorecard API connection.

Yes, college-scorecard-mcp-server includes a documented Cursor MCP installation configuration. The configuration runs the npm package with `npx` and supplies `SCORECARD_API_KEY` as an environment variable.

It returns school identity, costs, admissions, aid, demographics, completion, program earnings, debt, awards, and post-entry earnings. It also returns comparison ranks, field metadata, CIP lookups, and calculated debt-to-earnings or net-price-to-earnings ratios.

Related MCP servers

All in Education All alternatives
Add a badge to your READMEShow it’s listed — live SVG, Markdown or HTML.

AllMCPs Directory Badge

Full Badge Customizer

Showcase your server listing on GitHub or your project documentation. Embed this dynamic SVG badge to highlight official listing status and live engagement.

Badge Style:
Live Dynamic SVG PreviewCollege Scorecard MCP Server AllMCPs Directory Badge
Markdown (GitHub README)
[![AllMCPs](https://allmcps.com/api/badge/college-scorecard-mcp-server?style=directory)](https://allmcps.com/mcp/college-scorecard-mcp-server)
HTML Embed
<a href="https://allmcps.com/mcp/college-scorecard-mcp-server"><img src="https://allmcps.com/api/badge/college-scorecard-mcp-server?style=directory" alt="College Scorecard MCP Server on AllMCPs" /></a>