Universities Antitrust Lawsuit

Documents:

Plaintiffs, Sia Henry, Michael Maerlander, Brandon Piyevsky, Kara Saffrin, and Brittany
Tatiana Weaver, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, bring this class action
under Section 1 of the Sherman Act against Brown University (“Brown”), California Institute of
Technology (“CalTech”), University of Chicago (“Chicago”), The Trustees of Columbia
University in the City of New York (“Columbia”), Cornell University (“Cornell’), Trustees of
Dartmouth College (“Dartmouth”), Duke University (“Duke”), Emory University (“Emory”),
Georgetown University (“Georgetown”), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (“MIT),
Northwestern University (“Northwestern”), University of Notre Dame du Lac (“Notre Dame”),
The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania (“Penn”), William Marsh Rice University (“Rice”),
Vanderbilt University (“Vanderbilt”), and Yale University (“Yale”) (collectively, “Defendants”)

Defendants are private, national universities that have long been in the top 25 of the U.S. News & World Report rankings for such schools. These elite institutions occupy a place of privilege and importance in American society. And yet these same Defendants, by their own admission, have participated in a price-fixing cartel that is designed to reduce or eliminate financial aid as a locus of competition, and that in fact has artificially inflated the net price of attendance for students receiving financial aid. Defendants participate in the cartel claiming the protection of Section 568 of the Improving America’s Schools Act of 1994 (the “568 Exemption”). This exemption from the antitrust laws, which otherwise prohibit conspiracies among competitors, applies to two or more institutions of higher education at which “all students admitted are admitted on a need-blind basis.” Section 568 defines “on a need-blind basis” to mean “without regard to the financial circumstances of the student involved or the student’s family.” 15 U.S.C. § 1 Note.

Ivy League Subsidies and tax breaks:

KEY FINDINGS:
1. Ivy League payments and entitlements cost taxpayers $41.59 billion over a six-year period (FY2010-FY2015). This is equivalent to $120,000 in government monies, subsidies, & special tax treatment per undergraduate student, or $6.93 billion per year.

2. The Ivy League was the recipient of $25.73 billion worth of federal payments during this period: contracts ($1.37 billion), grants ($23.9 billion) and direct payments – student assistance ($460 million).