Since the 2022 financial aid antitrust case started to result in settlements, the elite American higher education sector has been quietly preparing for the kind of legal challenge that the class action lawsuit that landed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts on August 8, 2025, has produced. Along with the Consortium on Financing Higher Education, Common Application Inc., and Scoir Inc., which runs the Coalition Application platform, 32 of the nation’s most esteemed colleges and universities are named as defendants in D’Amico v. Consortium on Financing Higher Education.
The four named plaintiffs, which include lead plaintiff Alayna D’Amico, one current student at Vassar, one current student at Washington University in St. Louis, and two recent Wesleyan University graduates, contend that the binding Early Decision policies these universities collectively employ violate the Sherman Antitrust Act by stifling competition for students and raising tuition costs. An injunction to stop the practice, monetary damages that could be tripled under U.S. antitrust law, and more extensive structural changes to the way the identified institutions handle admissions and provide financial aid are among the remedies requested.
| D’Amico v. COFHE — Key Information | Details |
|---|---|
| Case Name | D’Amico, et al. v. Consortium on Financing Higher Education, et al. |
| Lead Plaintiff | Alayna D’Amico (recent Wesleyan graduate) |
| Total Named Plaintiffs | Four (Vassar, WashU, two Wesleyan) |
| Filing Date | August 8, 2025 |
| Court | US District Court for the District of Massachusetts |
| Universities Named | 32 elite US institutions |
| Notable Defendants | Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Duke, Penn, Dartmouth, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Williams |
| Other Defendants | COFHE, Common Application Inc., Scoir Inc. |
| Plaintiffs’ Counsel | Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll and Langer Grogan & Diver |
| Lead Attorney | Edward Diver, Langer Grogan & Diver |
| Statute Cited | Sherman Antitrust Act, Section 1 |
| Class Period | Since August 2021 |
| Brown ED Acceptance Rate | 18% (vs 4% regular decision) |
| Reference Reporting | |
| Related 2022 Case Potential Damages | About $2 billion |
Because the system operates differently than most outsiders believe, it is worthwhile to carefully examine the mechanics of how Early Decision truly operates beneath the legal claim. Early Decision students usually submit their applications by November 1st of their senior year. Several months before usual admissions choices, the college responds by mid-December. The policy requires the student to enroll if they are accepted. They remove any applications they may have submitted to other universities. Financial aid offers from different institutions cannot be compared. They make a commitment before they are aware of the true total cost of attendance.
For the class of 2020, Brown accepted 18% of its Early Decision pool, compared to just 4% of ordinary candidates. These acceptance rates are significantly higher than those of regular admissions. Applying Early Decision increases the likelihood of acceptance by almost 40 percentage points across top universities, according to a widely cited research. Every quantifiable metric shows that students who apply through the system have an advantage over those who do not.
The portion of the lawsuit that gives it structural weight is the antitrust theory. The plaintiffs’ attorney, Edward Diver, a partner at Langer Grogan & Diver, described the Early Decision as “a textbook antitrust violation — a horizontal agreement between competing schools not to compete.” The claim is that the 32 universities listed have decided as a group not to pursue candidates who have received Early Decision admission to rival universities.
According to the plaintiffs, this pact eliminates pricing competition in the upper echelons of American higher education. Since Early Decision accepts are unable to compare offers from other universities, universities are free to charge full tuition to them without fear of competition. The lawsuit claims that the flow-through impact increases tuition costs and decreases financial assistance generosity for all applicants, even those who are accepted through regular decision.
The purported cooperation revolves upon the Consortium for Financing Higher Education. The claimed goal of COFHE, a private, membership-only organization of 32 prestigious private schools and universities—the same 32 that are listed as university defendants—is to inform its members on financial aid and admissions procedures. According to the lawsuit, COFHE particularly makes it easier for member institutions to exchange lists of approved Early Decision students, enabling colleges to plan how to distribute candidates.
Meike Kaan, Williams College’s chief communications officer, made it clear that the college does not give out applicant identities to other universities. Cass Cliatt, Senior Vice President for Communications at Brown, declared that the institution would “mount a strong defense” and dismissed the accusation as baseless. A major emphasis of the discovery process will probably be the complete disclosure of COFHE’s actual operations and the information members disclose or withhold.
The lawsuit is more intriguing than a single class action would be on its own because of the historical background. When the so-called “Ivy Overlap Group” was discovered to be jointly determining financial assistance packages for students admitted to many Ivy League universities in 1989, the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division started looking into elite universities for comparable coordination. Colleges that used need-blind admissions were permitted to share some information after a 1994 settlement.
The 2022 antitrust class action against 17 prestigious universities, which claims the so-called “568 Presidents Group” effectively price-fixed financial aid by lowering aid awards by about $685 million across about 200,000 students over a 20-year period, is another aspect of the current legal landscape. Brown and other defendants in that previous lawsuit reached significant settlements; in January 2024, Brown paid $19.5 million. Potential damages in the 2022 case, which involves six colleges, including Penn, are projected to be around $2 billion. In January 2025, Johns Hopkins and Caltech negotiated a settlement of $35.3 million.
Observing the accumulation of antitrust pressure on elite higher education over the last four years gives one the impression that the legal framework surrounding American admissions is experiencing a more significant reckoning than most consumer media recognizes. The plaintiffs’ attorneys estimate that the class in this complaint consists of at least tens of thousands of students who were admitted to one of the 32 designated institutions through Early Decision since August 2021 and paid tuition without full grant coverage.
The institutions’ anticipated defense will center on claims that ED regulations give students an advantage in applications, that the practice is optional, and that what COFHE actually conducts is covered by the historical exemption from Congress permitting need-blind admissions information sharing. This is not legal advice.
