More than a dozen top US colleges, including Yale, Columbia, and MIT, must face antitrust litigation over their alleged conspiracy to hold down financial aid packages while telling the world they admit applicants regardless of financial need, a federal judge in Chicago ruled Monday.
Judge Matthew F. Kennelly let the lawsuit move forward in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, saying the schools aren’t covered by the so-called 568 exemption, which provides a partial antitrust shield for colleges that act in concert to promote need-blind admissions.
Kennelly cited plausible allegations that the schools admit at most only some students on a need-blind basis. The colleges have argued that the evidence doesn’t back up the claims, but attacks on the sufficiency of the evidence are for a later stage of the case, the judge said.
The other colleges targeted by the proposed class action are Brown, Caltech, the University of Chicago, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Emory, Georgetown, Northwestern, Notre Dame, the University of Pennsylvania, Rice, and Vanderbilt.
Want more news? Subscribe to CPI’s free daily newsletter for more headlines and updates on antitrust developments around the world.
