How Wealthy Universities Favor the Rich

Late Friday, Johns Hopkins University and the California Institute of Technology settled in a federal antitrust lawsuit accusing 17 highly selective universities of illegally colluding to fix financial aid formulas and overcharge students. The agreement leaves only five of the original 17 defendants named in the 2022 lawsuit still fighting: Cornell University, Georgetown University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Notre Dame and the University of Pennsylvania. All five have denied wrongdoing and continue to defend their practices. The colleges were all at one point members of the 568 Presidents Group, a consortium of need-blind institutions that were allowed to collaborate on financial aid formulas with immunity from federal antitrust laws. The group disbanded in 2022, when the congressional exemption that led to its creation in 1998 expired.