College Scorecard API

Base URL

https://api.data.gov/ed/collegescorecard/v1

Authentication

A free api.data.gov key is required. DEMO_KEY works for a small number of evaluation calls but is shared globally and throttled to roughly 30 requests per hour per IP.

Rate limit

1,000 requests per hour with a registered key. DEMO_KEY is much lower and shared with every anonymous caller on your IP.

Pricing

Free. US government works are in the public domain.

CORS

Enabled — callable directly from browser JavaScript

Official docs

Read the docs

Every request below was executed against the live API on 21 Aug 2026, and the response shown is the real body it returned — not an illustration.

curl 'https://api.data.gov/ed/collegescorecard/v1/schools?api_key=DEMO_KEY&per_page=1'

const res = await fetch("https://api.data.gov/ed/collegescorecard/v1/schools?api_key=DEMO_KEY&per_page=1");
if (!res.ok) throw new Error(`Request failed: ${res.status}`);
const data = await res.json();
console.log(data);

import requests

res = requests.get("https://api.data.gov/ed/collegescorecard/v1/schools?api_key=DEMO_KEY&per_page=1", timeout=20)
res.raise_for_status()
print(res.json())

{
  "metadata": {
    "page": 0,
    "total": 6273,
    "per_page": 1
  },
  "results": [
    {
      "latest": {
        "school": {
          "zip": "35762",
          "city": "Normal",
          "name": "Alabama A & M University",
          "alias": "AAMU",
          "state": "AL",
          "locale": 12,
          "address": "4900 Meridian Street",
          "dolflag": 0,
          "branches": 1,
          "men_only": 0,
          "operating": 1,
          "ownership": 1,
          "region_id": 5,
          "accreditor": "Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges",
          "school_url": "www.aamu.edu/",
          "state_fips": 1,
          "women_only": 0,
          "main_campus": 1,
          "online_only": 0,
          "endowment": {
            "end": null,
            "begin": null
          },
          "carnegie_basic": 18,
          "faculty_salary": 8699,
          "ownership_peps": 1,
          "peps_ownership": "Public",
          "accreditor_code": "SACSCC",
          "ft_faculty_rate": 0.6439,
          "sector": {
            "scorecard": 4
          },
          "carnegie_undergrad": 10,
          "degree_urbanization": null,
          "under_investigation": 0,
          "price_calculator_url": "www.aamu.edu/admissions-aid/tuition-fees/net-price-calculator.html",
          "carnegie_size_setting": 14,
          "minority_serving": {
            "annh": 0,
            "nant": 0,
            "aanipi": 0,
            "tribal": 0,
            "hispanic": 0,
            "historically_black": 1,
            "predominantly_black": 0

metadataobject

`page`, `total` and `per_page`. Total was 6,273 institutions at the time of testing.

resultsarray

The institutions.

results[].latestobject

Most recent data year. Historic years appear as sibling keys named by year.

latest.school.name / alias / city / state / zipstring

Institution identity and location.

latest.school.ownershipinteger

1 public, 2 private non-profit, 3 private for-profit — the single most important segmentation field.

latest.school.accreditorstring

Accrediting body, for example a regional Commission on Colleges.

latest.school.localeinteger

Urbanisation code from city through to rural.

latest.school.main_campus / branchesinteger

Whether this is the main campus and how many branches exist. Prevents double counting.

latest.school.operatinginteger

Whether the institution is still operating. Closed institutions remain in the dataset.

latest.cost / latest.earnings / latest.completionobject

Tuition, post-study earnings and completion rate blocks, each nested several levels deep.

• Compare tuition costs across US institutions
• Show median earnings by institution and field of study
• Build a college search and comparison tool
• Analyse student debt against post-graduation income
• Filter institutions by size, control or geography

If College Scorecard does not fit, these government & open data apis cover similar ground. Every one was called before publishing, and each links to its own reference page with a working curl command and the response it returned.