“The Defendant Schools have mutually agreed not to compete for students accepted through Early Decision, which both raises prices for tuition and other services and entrenches a system widely acknowledged to be unfair and harmful,” the lawsuit alleges.
A small coalition of students have filed a prospective class-action lawsuit against dozens of colleges and universities, accusing them of abusing the “early decision” process to intentionally increase tuition costs.
Filed in a Boston-based federal court on Friday, the plaintiffs include former students at Wesleyan University, as well as two other schools. Together, they say that colleges regularly use early decision-related commitments to raise the cost of attendance for all students, including those who submit applications on a more standard timeline.
The practice of releasing early admissions decisions is common throughout the country.
In general, students who chose the early decision process face far tighter deadlines than their peers, but are also more likely to be admitted. Most admission offers include provisions to prevent admitted students from reconsidering their choices, sometimes by threatening legal consequences.
The lawsuit contends that all 32 university-defendants are actively violating federal antitrust law by limiting competition or early-decision students. It also claims that universities mislead applicants by indicating that early-decision offers are legally binding.
“The Defendant Schools have mutually agreed not to compete for students accepted through Early Decision, which both raises prices for tuition and other services and entrenches a system widely acknowledged to be unfair and harmful,” the lawsuit alleges.
All of the universities, say the students’ attorneys, “have openly participated and are participating in practices that entrench patterns of inequality of access while inflating the price of attendance.”
Benjamin Brown, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, said the consequence of these practices is bad for all university applicants, irrespective of when they choose to submit their applications.
“Early decision applicants lose choice and negotiation leverage, while regular decision applicants are left to scramble for an artificially diminished number of admission slots doled out at lower acceptance rates,” Brown said.
“The schools lose their incentive to compete on price for students admitted through Early Decision, driving up overall ‘top line’ tuition levels and reducing both need-based and merit-based aid for Early Decision admittees,” the lawsuit says. “The result is that both Early Decision and non-Early Decision students pay higher prices than they would have paid absent the conspiracy at the center of the Early Decision scheme.”
The defendants in the lawsuit include Brown University, Duke, and Wesleyan College, among dozens of other elite institutions.
Sources
Brown, other universities sued over alleged tuition inflation through early decision applications
Lawsuit accuses Duke, other colleges of price-fixing through Early Decision admissions
Lawsuit filed in Mass. against elite colleges over early decision admissions policy
Top US colleges sued in class action over ‘early decision’ admissions
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