New York
CNN
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4 extra personal universities have agreed to settle a lawsuit which alleged they violated antitrust legal guidelines in figuring out monetary help quantities for admitted college students, in accordance with court docket paperwork filed Friday.
Dartmouth School, and Rice, Vanderbilt and Northwestern universities agreed to pay a complete of $166 million to settle claims filed in a 2022 class motion lawsuit alleging the faculties colluded on the amount of financial aid awarded to college students, whereas favoring candidates from wealthier households. The settlement comes after Yale, Columbia, Duke, Brown and Emory agreed to pay a mixed $104.5 million to settle their parts of the case final month. In 2022, the College of Chicago agreed to accept $13.5 million.
The settlement is awaiting preliminary approval from a federal decide. If authorised, the overall settlement quantity on this case will now be $284 million.
US antitrust regulation permits larger schooling establishments to work collectively to provide you with monetary help awards for candidates so long as they don’t weigh any pupil’s skill to pay tuition when contemplating whether or not to just accept them, a apply known as “need-blind” admission.
However attorneys for the eight former college students who introduced the lawsuit ahead say 17 of the highest universities within the nation both failed to stick to need-blind admission or colluded with such faculties in setting their monetary help awards, which has lowered worth competitors among the many faculties and disfavored college students who want monetary help, in accordance with court docket paperwork.
CNN reached out to the 4 faculties for remark.
“We’re dedicated to eradicating monetary obstacles for our college students … We preserve the College didn’t commit any wrongdoing and that the plaintiffs’ claims are baseless,” a Northwestern spokesperson stated in a press release. “Nevertheless, the College has agreed to settle this case — with out admitting legal responsibility — in order that we are able to put this matter behind us and deal with Northwestern’s international eminence, glorious educating, modern analysis, and the private and mental progress of our college students.”
A spokesperson for Dartmouth stated the college “has an extended historical past of creating schooling reasonably priced for generations of scholars and their households,” including the college has spent greater than a billion {dollars} in monetary help since 2014. “Almost 15% of this yr’s first-year class is attending Dartmouth with out accountability for paying tuition, housing, meals and lots of different charges, and greater than half of the category receives some type of monetary help. Dartmouth is unwavering in its dedication to offer monetary help based mostly solely on the person wants of our college students.”
A Vanderbilt spokesperson advised CNN in a press release: “Although we consider the plaintiffs’ claims are with out benefit, now we have reached a settlement as a way to preserve our dedication to the privateness of our college students and households and hold our deal with offering gifted students from all social, cultural and financial backgrounds one of many world’s greatest undergraduate educations.”
Rice College didn’t reply to CNN’s request for remark.
“These 10 settlements shine the highlight on the seven remaining elite universities which have but to do the appropriate factor and rectify the overcharges to their alumni and college students who got here from working class and center class backgrounds,” stated Robert Gilbert, one of many lead attorneys representing the previous college students.
The ratcheting stress is mirrored within the particular person quantities every faculty has settled for. Since Chicago’s settlement, which was finalized in September, the settlement prices have grown steadily steeper. The schools reaching an settlement final month are paying between $18.5 million and $24 million. In the meantime, Dartmouth, Rice, Vanderbilt and Northwestern’s settlements vary from $33.75 million to $55 million every.
The seven remaining universities that haven’t settled embrace the College of Pennsylvania, together with Notre Dame, Georgetown, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, the Massachusetts Institute of Know-how and the California Institute of Know-how.