edu_data_mcp_server

This MCP server exposes the Urban Institute Education Data API through a set of tools that Claude can call to retrieve education data. The server provides two main tools: get_education_data for retrieving detailed records, and get_education_data_summary for aggregated statistics. You can browse available endpoints through the server's resources endpoint to understand which levels, sources, and topics are supported. To use the server with Claude, configure an MCP entry (for example named edu-data) that runs the MCP server via npx edu-data-mcp-server. Once configured, you can invoke get_education_data to query detailed data by level (schools, school-districts, college-university), source (ccd, ipeds, crdc, etc.), and topic (enrollment, directory, finance, etc.), optionally filtering by subtopics and additional filters. The get_education_data_summary tool lets you compute aggregates (sum, avg, count, median) over a chosen variable, grouped by specified fields, and with optional filters. Tools are designed to be flexible for use within Claude prompts, enabling natural-language questions to be translated into structured API calls.

Example usage entails sending a JSON payload to the tool like level, source, topic, and filters for get_education_data, or level, source, topic, stat, var, and by for get_education_data_summary. Resources endpoints also let you browse and discover endpoints such as edu-data://endpoints/{level}/{source}/{topic} to understand available data.

To start, ensure the MCP server is reachable by Claude after installation, then issue messages to Claude instructing it to call get_education_data or get_education_data_summary with your desired parameters. Claude will forward the request to the MCP server and return the results for your analysis or reporting.

Prerequisites:

• Node.js and npm installed on your system
• Access to the project repository (via git or download)

Installation steps:

1. Clone the repository: git clone https://github.com/yourusername/edu-data-mcp-server.git cd edu-data-mcp-server

2. Install dependencies: npm install

3. Build the server (if a build step is required in this project): npm run build

4. Link the server for easy npx execution (local development): npm link

5. Run the server directly (for testing): npm start

6. Optional: Run in watch mode during development: npm run watch

7. Verify the server exposes the MCP interface and the available tools (e.g., get_education_data, get_education_data_summary) via the configured endpoints.

Tips and considerations:

• The MCP server is Node.js based and is intended to be invoked via npx edu-data-mcp-server. Ensure your environment has npx available.
• The configuration example in Claude uses the mcpServers entry named edu-data with command npx and args [edu-data-mcp-server]. If you rename the server or change the package name, update the command and args accordingly.
• If you modify or expand endpoints, you can browse endpoints via the resources endpoint (edu-data://endpoints/{level}/{source}/{topic}) to confirm available data.
• In Claude settings, ensure the server is enabled (disabled: false) and manage any alwaysAllow permissions as needed for your workspace.
• Environment variables or API keys are not specified in the README; if the underlying API requires authentication, you would add env vars under the mcp_config sections accordingly, for example env: { "EDU_API_KEY": "your_key_here" }.
• If you encounter memory or rate-limit issues with large queries, leverage the limit parameter in get_education_data and use appropriate filters to narrow results.