Henry, et al. v. Brown University, et al. – 568 Cartel Antitrust Litigation

Berger Montague serves as co-lead counsel and obtained $319 million in settlements to date in this antitrust class action lawsuit filed against Brown University, California Institute of Technology, University of Chicago, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Duke University, Emory University, Georgetown University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northwestern University, Notre Dame, University of Pennsylvania, Rice University, Vanderbilt University, and Yale University.

The federal district court for the Northern District of Illinois denied in its entirety a summary judgment motion filed by the five elite university defendants who have not settled the case. These remaining defendants are Cornell, Georgetown, MIT, Notre Dame, and the University of Pennsylvania. The case may now proceed to trial. The case has been brought by a proposed class of more than 200,000 former students of seventeen elite private universities alleged to have illegally colluded on a formula for financial aid. The Court’s ruling means that the case can now go to trial, currently scheduled to begin in November 2026. A decision by the Court on whether the proposed class of students will be certified remains pending.

The lawsuit alleges that seventeen universities—as members of what was then called the 568 Presidents Group—conspired for more than twenty years to reduce competition between them and thereby artificially inflate the amount students paid to attend these schools. Plaintiffs presented evidence to the Court showing that all seventeen defendants used a shared “methodology” (referred to by these defendants as the “Consensus Approach”) and agreed upon “principles” to calculate the financial need of approximately 200,000 students. Plaintiffs’ economic expert, Dr. Hal Singer, computed damages to the Class amounting to $685 million using an economic model that the Court has deemed reliable. Berger Montague and its co-lead counsel have already obtained almost $320 million in settlements from twelve of the seventeen defendants in this antitrust class action.

As alleged, these schools have thus taken advantage of an antitrust exemption to which they were not entitled, in violation of the antitrust laws of the United States, and as a result of this antitrust conspiracy, these schools have artificially reduced financial aid, and systematically increased the net tuition prices paid by thousands of students and their families. These students and their parents are members of the proposed class in this antitrust action that seeks to hold these elite institutions accountable for their misconduct, put a halt to these activities, and obtain damages to make the class members whole.

A copy of the Class Action Complaint is available here. The preliminary approval is available here. A separate website with additional information has been set up for this case at www.568cartel.com.

Read more about this case:

• Henry, et al. v. Brown University, et al. – 568 Cartel Antitrust Litigation Moves Forward as the Court Denies the Defendant Universities’ Summary Judgment Motion (Berger Montague, January 14, 2026)
• Financial Aid-Fixing Antitrust Claims Heading To Trial (Law360, January 13, 2026).
• Ill. Judge OKs $35M More In College Aid-Fixing Settlements (Law360, January 24, 2025).
• Penn One of Six Universities Yet to Settle $2 Billion Anti-trust Lawsuit (The Daily Pennsylvanian, January 14, 2025)
• Students Overpaid Elite Colleges $685 Million, ‘Price-Fixing’ Suit Says (Washington Post, December 17, 2024)
• Lawsuit Reveals How Colleges Really Talk About Rich Applicants (Wall Street Journal, December 17, 2024)
• Students Overpaid Elite Colleges $685 Million Price Fixing Suit Says (Boston Globe, December 17, 2024)
• Elite Universities Including MIT, Georgetown Accused in Court Filing of Favoring Wealthy in Admissions (The Hill, December 17, 2024)
• ‘Please Admit’: Rampant Donor Preferences Alleged in College Financial Aid Lawsuit (USA Today, December 18, 2024)
• Schools Fighting Price-Fixing Suit Face $685M Damages Claim (Law360, December 18, 2024)
• Some Elite US Universities Favor Wealthy Students in Admissions Decisions, Lawsuit Alleges (AP, December 18, 2024)
• Final Day to File Claims in Class-Action Lawsuit Alleging Tuition Overcharging by Top Universities (MSN, December 18, 2024)
• Yale, Duke and Columbia Among Elite Schools to Settle in Price-Fixing Case (New York Times, January 23, 2024)
• Lawsuit against Georgetown, other schools, renews questions over admissions practices (Washington Post, January 16, 2022)

If you or your company has been harmed by anticompetitive conduct or any conduct that you believe violates the antitrust laws, please contact Berger Montague.

Berger Montague is one of the nation’s preeminent law firms focusing on complex civil litigation, class actions, and mass torts in federal and state courts throughout the United States. The firm is active in the fields of antitrust, commercial litigation, consumer protection, defective products, environmental law, employment law, securities, and whistleblower cases, among many other practice areas. For more than 50 years, Berger Montague has played lead roles in precedent-setting cases and has recovered over $50 billion for its clients and the classes they have represented. Berger Montague is headquartered in Philadelphia and has offices in Chicago; Malvern, PA; Minneapolis; San Diego; San Francisco; Toronto, Canada; Washington, D.C., and Wilmington, DE.