Lawsuit accuses 40 faculties of pricing conspiracy
A category motion lawsuit filed Monday accuses 40 of probably the most extremely selective non-public American faculties and universities, in addition to the nonprofit Faculty Board, of conspiring to overcharge sure college students for tuition.
The swimsuit, filed by a present Boston College scholar and a Cornell alumnus, claims that the establishments’ tuition calculations for college kids who reside with just one dad or mum are unfair as a result of they require each dad and mom to submit monetary data, even when one is a noncustodial dad or mum who doesn’t contribute to the coed’s tuition.
It alleges that the oversight will increase tuition by a median of $6,200 a yr for affected college students. The plaintiffs are looking for $5 million in damages and a court docket order halting the consideration of noncustodial parental revenue in monetary help packaging.
The Faculty Board runs the Faculty Scholarship Service Profile, which all 40 of the defendant faculties require candidates to fill out. Solely about half of the 270 faculties that use the Profile require noncustodial dad and mom’ monetary data, based on the Faculty Board. The lawsuit accuses the nonprofit of pressuring faculties to undertake that requirement in 2006.
The lawsuit is the second latest class motion antitrust swimsuit filed towards elite universities. In 2022, 17 establishments, a lot of which had been additionally named in Monday’s swimsuit, had been sued for allegedly fixing tuition costs by illegally colluding on widespread monetary help formulation. Ten of these establishments have settled thus far for a complete of $248 million.
