Students Overpaid Elite Colleges $685 Million, 'Price-Fixing' Suit Says (msn.com) 37
A filing in an antitrust lawsuit against some of the nation's top universities alleges the schools overcharged students by $685 million in a "price-fixing" scheme, raising serious questions about their past admission and financial aid policies. From a report: Documents and testimony from officials at Georgetown University, the University of Notre Dame, the University of Pennsylvania, MIT and other elite schools suggest they appeared to favor wealthy applicants despite their stated policy of accepting students without regard for their financial circumstances. That "need-blind" policy allowed the schools to collaborate on financial aid under federal law, but plaintiffs in the case say the colleges violated the statute by considering students' family income.
Every year, according to a motion filed in federal court Monday night, Georgetown's then-president would draw up a list of about 80 applicants based on a tracking list that often included information about their parents' wealth and past donations, but not the applicants' transcripts, teacher recommendations or personal essays. "Please Admit," was often written at the top of the list, the lawsuit contends -- and almost all of the applicants were. Former students accuse 17 elite schools, including most of the Ivy League, of colluding to limit the financial aid packages of working- and middle-class students. The claimed damages of $685 million, which were detailed in the court filing Monday night, would automatically triple to more than $2 billion under U.S. antitrust laws.
Every year, according to a motion filed in federal court Monday night, Georgetown's then-president would draw up a list of about 80 applicants based on a tracking list that often included information about their parents' wealth and past donations, but not the applicants' transcripts, teacher recommendations or personal essays. "Please Admit," was often written at the top of the list, the lawsuit contends -- and almost all of the applicants were. Former students accuse 17 elite schools, including most of the Ivy League, of colluding to limit the financial aid packages of working- and middle-class students. The claimed damages of $685 million, which were detailed in the court filing Monday night, would automatically triple to more than $2 billion under U.S. antitrust laws.
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Greggery Peccary said it best:
"I must plummet boldly
Forward
To my ultra-avant
Laminated,
Simulated
Replica-mahogany desk,
With the strategically-placed,
Imported, very hip water pipe,
And the latest edition of the
Whole earth catalog,
And rack my agile mind
For a spectacular
New trend,
Thereby rejuvenating our limping
Economy,
And providing
For bored & miserable people
Everywhere
Some great new
'thing'
To identify with.!"
Apologies to F Zappa
Why ... (Score:1)
... should colleges ... OR federal financial aid folks (anybody who has dealt with FAFSA knows what I am talking about here) ... need to know about your family's finances at all?
Aren't you an adult when you go to college?
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You can try to claim financial independence.
Some of the criteria are that you have your own income and you're not declared as a dependent on your parent's tax return.
Not many 18-year-olds qualify.
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... should colleges ... OR federal financial aid folks (anybody who has dealt with FAFSA knows what I am talking about here) ... need to know about your family's finances at all?
Because, in general, the colleges give away money to poor people, but not to rich people. Rich people, on the other hand, donate. Sometimes millions of dollars. Colleges really really want rich people.
The summary, however, does not give any evidence that this is antitrust or price-fixing. That would require collusion. It may be false advertising (saying that their admissions are "need blind" when, in fact, they preferentially admit people who are rich), but antitrust would require them conspiring with each
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like, dunno, zip-tying everyone from a hospital (doctors, nurses and patients) shooting them in the head and dumping them into a mass grave,
If you really think this is something that happened in Gaza you've got to start getting your news from better sources and realize that Hamas lies constantly.
if you're just doing taqiyya, then please stop, though i doubt my request will mean much.
I really do not understand how anyone could be pro-israel at this point.
I'm a touch (not a lot) anti-semitic because i DO think that Jews in the US are a tad supremacist.
That said i support Israel because it is mostly a productive socially modern democratic country with an advanced society and part of the world.
Their neighbors (w/ the e
Re: idiot (Score:3)
Nobody gives a fuck if you're a homo in the muslim countries. You can't get gay-married in israel tho
Really?
According to Statistica Research Department, as of 2024, homosexuality is criminalised in 64 countries globally, with most of these nations situated in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. In 12 of these countries, the death penalty is either enforced or remains a possibility for private, consensual same-sex sexual activity.
Source: https://www.fairplanet.org/sto... [fairplanet.org]
There is no system of civil marriage in
Israel. Marriages can only be performed
under the auspices of a small number of
recognised religious communities. Israel
does, however, recognise those performed
in other countries and since 2007 has given
full legal recognition to same-sex marriages
in this context.
Source: https://www.keshetuk.org/uploa... [keshetuk.org]
So, the issue is, can you really equate Muslim countries that kill practicing homosexuals with Israel which tolerate same-sex couples, they just don't marry them in Israel? I think Israel comes out on top of that comparison...
They don't "give money" to anybody (Score:2)
Re: They don't "give money" to anybody (Score:2)
Then why are there millions and millions of former college students in the U.S. claiming they can't afford their student loan payments, and why is the government writing off hundreds of billions of dollars in student loans declaring they weren't affordable?
The financial analysis you imagine they do to 'qualify' college loans is not nearly as effective as you want to believe.
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The financial analysis you imagine they do to 'qualify' college loans is not nearly as effective as you want to believe.
I wasn't talking about student loans, I was talking about financial aid provided by the college. Colleges don't care or evaluate if students can pay off their loans. They care how large a loan the student will qualify for because that helps determine how much they can charge the student. Millions of students owe money on loans because they were under the illusion that student loans were financial aid, "free money" instead of permanent debt.
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Read TFA. There WAS a group of colleges that was operating under an explicit anti-trust waiver from the late 90s to 2002.
The lawsuit is a claim that they didn't comply with the terms of the waiver because they admitted some handful of major donor level types and that therefore it wasn't _really_ "need blind".
So basically the lawsuit is crap.... but trashy lawyers are gonna trashy lawyer.
Re: Why ... (Score:2)
Crap? They signed an agreement w/ govt that gave them protection from lawsuits, then didn't comply with the agreement - are you arguing that there should be no penalty for non-compliance?
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The "agreement" was about not worrying about not giving extra admission points to people can pay their tuition vs not when you do admissions. Basically the "poor vs middle class vs upper middle class" which is the vast number of students in the country and even in the elite schools.
It was not about about the more fringe aspect of that covering the donor class.
The violations being alleged are the donor class and I'm saying that the level of non-compliance is so small as to be immaterial.
What's been found s
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The article at no point said that they were colluding to set prices.
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No. For many legal aspects, you're not an adult until 21.
Re: Why ... (Score:2)
For healthcare in the U.S. you're a dependent child until your 27th birthday - apparently that criteria is common in other countries too...
Don't make me gag (Score:2, Troll)
This suit will be laughed out of court. The system is designed to keep the masses stupider so that the power of the ultra-rich will not get threatened.
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The ultra-rich (or at least rich enough to make endowment donations) are admitted as legacies, but once admitted, they have to work like everyone else. The profs aren't gonna grade them easier. They only do that for athletes.
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Not overcharged at all (Score:5, Interesting)
You're buying a slice of access to a social network of the elites, not the education. You think rich people stay rich by wasting money?
They could get their kids excellent private tutoring by teams of PhDs, for less money, if they wanted to do so. They're spending this money because it's a proven sound investment in their kids' futures.
Re:Not overcharged at all (Score:5, Interesting)
You're buying a slice of access to a social network of the elites, not the education. You think rich people stay rich by wasting money?
They could get their kids excellent private tutoring by teams of PhDs, for less money, if they wanted to do so. They're spending this money because it's a proven sound investment in their kids' futures.
Not just a slice of access, but the right to associate a specific set of letters with your name, like "Stanford", "Harvard", or "UC Berkeley" that will pay dividends for the rest of your professional career.
I'm fortunate to have had parents who urged me to seek out those letters, and who could pay for a non-trivial fraction of the cost (I paid the rest). That decision opened one door which led to the next and the next; doors that would not have been opened for me otherwise. And now, at this point in my career, people pay me handsomely just to hear my opinion on things, because of those letters.
That first set of letters represented to everyone else that I might have been educated and trained well. I had to prove that indeed I did pay attention and work hard at those institutions, but the door to be able to demonstrate my knowledge and skill was opened because of those letters.
Those letters form a filter, an approximate evaluation. A lot of people on slashdot like to bash institutions of knowledge; I've never understood that attitude. As one of my professors suggested, it's like the type of a variable or the category of an item -- it doesn't give you the exact value of the variable or identity of the item, but gives you an approximation to it. Although the approximation is only a loose one, it still provides information that can be useful. Knowing that a variable holds an integer, or that an animal is a dog doesn't tell you which integer or which dog it is, but the lack of precision doesn't mean that knowledge is useless. Just so, knowing that someone went to Florida Institute of Technology versus MIT doesn't tell you how well they were educated, but it constraints the probabilities.
Re:Not overcharged at all (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't bash higher education, but when I hear 'Ivy League' I do NOT hear 'better education'. Choose your subject, and there's almost certainly a state institution whose students beat your choice of Ivy League institution in generally accepted ratings.
What they have in spades in prestige and branding. It won't make you a better lawyer or engineer or whatever you want to be, but it will probably help you make more money at it.
So yes, I will slam them for the quality of their education, because it's blown all out of proportion. They deliver a good - maybe even excellent - education, but it is not the best. You go to those schools for the networking advantage.
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Have you actually BEEN to both kinds of universities and seen how the classes are taught?
Yes, Harvard classes are mostly taught by TA and associate professors. Real professors do fundraising and public relations to raise money to feed their research assistants. At small private colleges classes are taught by professors whose focus is teaching. You don't build your resume to get into Harvard in order to get an education. You do it because it gives you entree to the ruling class. You're intellectually curious and want an education? There are dozens of elite small private colleges that do that mu
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How much does the "prestige" and connections even matter beyond a certain point? After your first few jobs (UK here) when you're younger, no one gives a shit where you studied or even if you went to university at all once you've racked up some good years' experience.
It's quite common here for hiring managers to (internally usually) roll their eyes at an Oxford or Cambridge graduate! It tends to be a stronger indicator of entitlement & attitude problems rather than suitability for a job; this is a big-is
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As somebody with far lesser valued letters, I agree and commend you for recognizing this.
Now that I've trodden most of the way down the path and understand (somewhat anyway) how the system works, I'll be able to give to my children the knowledge, and hopefully the financial support that your parents gave you so they can have those letters.
I hope they reflect on it later in life the same way that you are here.
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I actually pay handsomely to never hear from Ivy League graduates
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I thin
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I'm fortunate to have had parents who urged me to seek out those letters, and who could pay for a non-trivial fraction of the cost (I paid the rest).
Based on this description you're the "poor" type of attendee and based on they rest of your post you know the score about these places.
Going to Harvard / Stanford / MIT etc. is a big deal for strivers and nerds who still need to make their money. To The Rich it's a nice to have.
Also, being in one of these schools, at least in STEM, is a freakin' PITA to begin with, unless one is really IQ 150+ perhaps; for those guys it's ok/easy)
Being there because your parents bought your way in when you wouldn't have be
Old news (Score:4, Interesting)
Played Yourself (Score:2)
This is what happens when you teach your marks higher math, economics, and critical thinking skills.