Current Anti-Trust Exemption Continued

Congress has approved legislation to extend the current anti-trust exemption, in effect since 1994, provided to institutions that practice need-blind admissions.

This most recent renewal maintains the antitrust exemption for allowable activities, including the ability for institutions to agree to use common principles of analysis to determine financial need.

The bill makes a modest change by eliminating one of the allowable activities under the previous antitrust exemption. The eliminated provision allowed schools to exchange, through an independent third party, data related to certain student and family financial information before awarding need-based aid. Because this provision was never used by the institutions, the scope of the exemption was narrowed, and is now limited to those activities that eligible schools actually use.

The bill was passed by both houses of Congress without objection, and is expected to be signed by the president.