Students Overpaid Elite Colleges $685 Million, ‘Price-Fixing’ Suit Says

Every year, according to a motion filed in federal court Monday night, Georgetown University’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.

Documents and testimony from officials at Georgetown, 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.

Meanwhile, according to court documents, the schools’ endowments grew dramatically from 2003 to 2022, to a collective total of more than $220 billion.