[ad_1]
The lawsuit alleges that 16 major U.S. universities, including Yale and Georgetown, violated anti-competition laws by using a shared methodology to determine student funding.
Yale University is among more than a dozen higher education institutions in the United States for allegedly violating anti-competitive laws and unfairly limiting student grant awards, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported.paywall) on Monday.
The lawsuit was filed in Illinois federal court by lawyers representing five former students involved in some of the 16 organizations named, according to the WSJ.
Palos focuses on the thorny issue of how universities determine their ability to pay college fees, which has reached astronomical levels in the U.S. and fueled the student debt crisis.
The lawsuit alleges that universities used a shared illegal methodology to determine financial aid because institutions sometimes examine the ability of candidates to pay for higher education, the WSJ said.
U.S. universities are allowed to collaborate on grant award formulas, but only if they practice so-called “blind” admissions that don’t take into account the student’s ability to pay, when deciding who to enter and who not, WSJ reported.
The lawsuit calls for a definitive end to the organizations working together to calculate compensation and financial needs and to determine the size of the aid packages provided to candidates.
University admissions in the US are very opaque. Few candidates end up paying the full price of tuition, but support packages can vary drastically.
43.2 million Americans have student loan debt, according to the Education Data Initiative, the total amount of student loan debt being paid in the U.S. stands at $ 1.75 trillion.
The lawsuit targets some of the country’s most prestigious higher education institutes.
In addition to Yale, other universities named in the lawsuit include Georgetown University, Northwestern University, Brown University, California Institute of Technology, University of Chicago, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Duke University, Emory University, Massachusetts Institute. of Technology, University of Notre Dame, University of Pennsylvania, Rice University and Vanderbilt University.
According to the WSJ, lawyers say more than 170,000 students who attended the designated schools in the lawsuit and received a partial 18-year grant may be eligible to sue as plaintiffs.
[ad_2]
Source link
