College Scorecard vs Universities
A side-by-side look at the College Scorecard and Universities MCP servers: transport, auth, tools, quality signals, and the config to install either one in Claude, Cursor, Windsurf or VS Code.
Verdict: choose College Scorecard for education work as a local process; choose Universities for education as a local process. You can also run both side by side in one mcpServers block.
Which MCP server should you choose?
Choose College Scorecard when
- You need dedicated capabilities in the Education domain.
- You prefer a local stdio subprocess transport.
- You want tools like
search_schools, get_school.
Choose Universities when
- You need dedicated capabilities in the Education domain.
- You prefer a local stdio subprocess transport.
- You want tools like
search_universities.
Feature & specification comparison
Rows where the two servers differ are marked.
| Spec | ||
|---|---|---|
| Category | Education | Education |
| Quality signal | 52/100 · Good | 49/100 · Fair |
| Install command | Confirmed | Confirmed |
| Transport | Local subprocess (stdio) | Local subprocess (stdio) |
| Auth | Not declared | Not declared |
| Pricing | Not declared | Not declared |
| Required env vars | None listed | None listed |
| Verified owner | Community listing | Community listing |
| GitHub stars | 0 | 0 |
| Directory activity | 0 views 0 installs 0 upvotes | 1 views 0 installs 0 upvotes |
| Tools | 2 | 1 |
| Full listing | View College Scorecard | View Universities |
Tools & capabilities
College Scorecard tools 2
search_schoolsSearch US colleges and universities by name. Returns school name, location, tuition, admission rate, student size, median earnings, and completion rate. Example: search_schools("MIT", "MA").get_schoolGet detailed info for a specific college by its College Scorecard ID. Returns tuition, admission rate, student size, median earnings after 10 years, completion rate, and median debt.
Universities tools 1
search_universitiesSearch universities worldwide by name and/or country using the Hipolabs API. Returns name, country, state/province, web pages, and email domains. At least one of name or country must be provided.
Ready-to-paste client configs
Paste either block (or both) into your client config, e.g. claude_desktop_config.json or ~/.cursor/mcp.json. We only show a config when the install command is confirmed.
College Scorecard
{
"mcpServers": {
"college-scorecard": {
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"-y",
"@pipeworx/mcp-college-scorecard"
]
}
}
}
Universities
{
"mcpServers": {
"universities": {
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"-y",
"@pipeworx/mcp-universities"
]
}
}
}
Frequently asked questions
College Scorecard is categorized under Education and uses a local stdio subprocess. Universities belongs to Education and uses a local stdio subprocess. Pick College Scorecard for education work and Universities for education.
Copy the mcpServers block from the config section on this page into your client's config (for example claude_desktop_config.json or ~/.cursor/mcp.json), then fully restart the client.
College Scorecard has no declared pricing — check the project's own site. Universities has no declared pricing — check the project's own site. If a server needs environment variables such as API keys, define them under the env key in your client's MCP config.
Yes. MCP clients support multiple servers: add college-scorecard and universities as separate keys in the same mcpServers object, and your assistant will call tools from either one.
On AllMCPs, College Scorecard has a quality signal of 52/100 (Good) with 0 views, 0 installs and 0 GitHub stars. Universities has 49/100 (Fair) with 1 views, 0 installs and 0 GitHub stars.