College Scorecard MCP Server

Overview

U.S. college data from the Department of Education College Scorecard API — costs, earnings, programs, and outcomes across roughly 6,500 Title IV institutions. Search and compare schools, look up program-level earnings by field of study, and compute ROI metrics like debt-to-earnings ratio from any MCP client. Runs as a stdio process or a local Streamable HTTP server.

Tools

Resources

All resource data is also reachable via tools. Use scorecard_search_schools or scorecard_get_school to discover school IDs before constructing resource URIs.

Prompts

Related MCP server: mcp-college-scorecard

Capability reference

scorecard_search_schools tool

• Search by name, state, ownership, degree level, size, acceptance rate, CIP code, or zip code and distance; per_page is capped at 100 with zero-indexed page.

• Returns core identity and cost metrics for quick scanning.

• sort forwards a supported API expression such as latest.cost.avg_net_price.overall:asc (:desc reverses it). men_only and women_only accept true or false; omission includes unknown flags, while false selects only explicit zero values.

scorecard_get_school tool

• Accepts a single school ID or an array of up to 100 IDs per call.

• Returns institutional profiles covering costs, admissions, outcomes, financial aid, demographics, and completion rates; fields overrides the default selection. men_only and women_only preserve true/false when known and are absent when unknown.

scorecard_compare_schools tool

• Accepts 2–5 school unit IDs and one topic: costs, admissions, outcomes, or aid.

• Returns comparison rows with within-set percentile ranks and relative deltas from a single API call.

scorecard_get_programs tool

• Accepts one school ID, with optional CIP code, credential_level, and minimum earnings filters.

• Returns median earnings and the matching count of graduates working and not enrolled 1 year after their highest credential, with suppressed and suppression_note for unavailable earnings.

• median_debt is completers' cumulative Stafford/Grad PLUS borrowing across attended institutions at the same academic level. ipeds_awards_year1 and ipeds_awards_year2 count awards in each year of the pooled debt cohort, not enrollment or unique students.

scorecard_search_programs tool

• Search by CIP code or program name, with state, ownership, net price, earnings, and debt filters; zero-indexed page and per_page (up to 100) paginate schools, so returned program rows may exceed per_page.

• Returns school IDs and names alongside program metrics, sorted by earnings within the fetched page.

• min_earnings filters locally; totals and pagination remain upstream school counts before local filtering. Earnings/debt thresholds are inclusive and exclude unknown values. Debt and award fields have the same meanings as in scorecard_get_programs.

scorecard_get_earnings tool

• Accepts one school ID and optional years for cohort trends and a gender-breakdown option.

• Returns median earnings at 6, 8, and 10 years after entry, P25/P75 at 6 and 10 years, and optional 6-year female/male medians; suppressed and suppression_note flag earnings unavailable at every time point.

• Each requested trend year adds its 6-year and 10-year median alongside the current snapshot.

scorecard_value_analysis tool

• Accepts one school ID; optional family_income selects the applicable net price bracket ($0–30k, $30k–48k, $48k–75k, $75k–110k, or $110k+).

• Returns debt-to-earnings and net-price-to-earnings ratios alongside the source figures; data_notes explains suppressed or missing fields.

scorecard_lookup_cip tool

• Search by keyword or partial name with limit up to 50 (default 20); use before CIP filters when the code is unknown.

• Returns codes, standard titles, and CIP families from a curated offline set of 202 common 4-digit codes, rather than the full NCES taxonomy.

scorecard_list_fields tool

• Search 80 curated offline field entries with limit up to 100 (default 30); use before passing custom fields to scorecard_get_school.

• Returns field paths, descriptions, data types, categories, and API sorting support; tip flags results containing unsortable fields.

scorecard://school/{id} resource

• Institutional profile as application/json — identity, cost, admissions, outcomes, aid, and completion data

• id is the school unit ID (integer as string) from scorecard_search_schools

• list returns a handful of example school URIs; use scorecard_search_schools to discover others

scorecard://programs/{id} resource

• Program-level outcomes as application/json — CIP code, title, credential level, 1-year earnings, cumulative Stafford/Grad PLUS debt, and ipeds_awards_year1 / ipeds_awards_year2 with the same meanings as the program tools; missing metrics are null

• id is the school unit ID from scorecard_search_schools

• list returns a handful of example school URIs; use scorecard_search_schools to discover others

scorecard_compare_prompt prompt

• Arguments: school_names (comma-separated list) and focus (costs | outcomes | programs), both required

• Returns one user message sequencing scorecard_search_schools → scorecard_compare_schools → scorecard_get_school, plus scorecard_get_programs/scorecard_lookup_cip when focus is programs or scorecard_value_analysis otherwise

Features

Built on @cyanheads/mcp-ts-core: stdio and Streamable HTTP transports, pluggable auth (none / jwt / oauth), swappable storage (in-memory, filesystem, Supabase, Cloudflare KV/R2/D1), structured logging with optional OpenTelemetry tracing.

College Scorecard-specific:

• Full College Scorecard API coverage: ~6,500 Title IV institutions, ~2,800 data fields spanning costs, outcomes, demographics, financial aid, and field-of-study earnings

• Program-level earnings: median earnings of graduates working and not enrolled 1 year after their highest credential, per school × CIP code × credential level

• Field pre-selection per tool — curated field sets appropriate to each tool's purpose; optional fields override for custom queries

• Embedded CIP code taxonomy (202 codes) and field catalog (80 fields) served as static data — zero API calls, zero rate-limit impact

• Geographic filtering via U.S. zip code + distance radius

Agent-friendly output:

• FERPA suppression surfaced as structured suppressed: true flag with suppression_note — prevents hallucination of missing earnings data at selective schools with small cohorts

• Derived metrics alongside source figures in scorecard_value_analysis — agents can verify arithmetic and branch on computed values, not raw numbers

• Percentile ranks and relative deltas in scorecard_compare_schools — structured output an agent cannot reconstruct from raw profiles without knowing the full comparison set

• School sorting uses indexed API fields; check scorecard_list_fields before choosing a sort expression. Six-year earnings does not support API sorting. Program earnings ordering applies within each fetched school page.

Getting started

Add the following to your MCP client configuration file. See api.data.gov/signup for a free API key.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "college-scorecard-mcp-server": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "bunx",
      "args": ["@cyanheads/college-scorecard-mcp-server@latest"],
      "env": {
        "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE": "stdio",
        "MCP_LOG_LEVEL": "info",
        "SCORECARD_API_KEY": "your-api-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

Or with npx (no Bun required):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "college-scorecard-mcp-server": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@cyanheads/college-scorecard-mcp-server@latest"],
      "env": {
        "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE": "stdio",
        "MCP_LOG_LEVEL": "info",
        "SCORECARD_API_KEY": "your-api-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

Or with Docker:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "college-scorecard-mcp-server": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run", "-i", "--rm",
        "-e", "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE=stdio",
        "-e", "SCORECARD_API_KEY=your-api-key",
        "ghcr.io/cyanheads/college-scorecard-mcp-server:latest"
      ]
    }
  }
}

For Streamable HTTP, set the transport and start the server:

MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE=http MCP_HTTP_PORT=3010 SCORECARD_API_KEY=... bun run start:http
# Server listens at http://localhost:3010/mcp

Prerequisites

• Bun v1.4.0 or higher (or Node.js v24+).

• A College Scorecard API key — free registration at api.data.gov/signup. Rate limit: 1,000 requests/hour per key.

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/cyanheads/college-scorecard-mcp-server.git

2. Navigate into the directory:

cd college-scorecard-mcp-server

3. Install dependencies:

bun install

4. Configure environment:

cp .env.example .env
# edit .env and set SCORECARD_API_KEY

Configuration

All configuration is validated at startup via Zod schemas in src/config/server-config.ts. Key environment variables:

See .env.example for the full list of optional overrides.

Running the server

Local development

• Build and run:

  # One-time build
  bun run rebuild
  
  # Run the built server
  bun run start:stdio
  # or
  bun run start:http

• Run checks and tests:

  bun run devcheck   # Lint, format, typecheck, security
  bun run test       # Vitest test suite
  bun run lint:mcp   # Validate MCP definitions against spec

Docker

docker build -t college-scorecard-mcp-server .
docker run --rm -e SCORECARD_API_KEY=your-key -p 3010:3010 college-scorecard-mcp-server

The Dockerfile defaults to HTTP transport, stateless session mode, and logs to /var/log/college-scorecard-mcp-server. OpenTelemetry peer dependencies are installed by default — build with --build-arg OTEL_ENABLED=false to omit them.

Project structure

Development guide

See CLAUDE.md for development guidelines and architectural rules. The short version:

• Handlers throw, framework catches — no try/catch in tool logic

• Use ctx.log for request-scoped logging, ctx.state for tenant-scoped storage

• Register new tools, resources, and prompts in the createApp() arrays in src/index.ts

• Wrap external API calls: validate raw → normalize to domain type → return output schema; never fabricate missing fields

Contributing

Issues are welcome. Run checks and tests before submitting:

bun run devcheck
bun run test

License

Apache-2.0 — see LICENSE for details.