‘Concerted action’: 8 Mass. colleges among 40 schools accused of financial aid price-fixing

BOSTON — Eight Massachusetts colleges have been named in a new class-action lawsuit that accuses 40 of the nation’s top private schools of exacerbating skyrocketing student loan debt by conspiring to increase the price of attending college, court documents indicate.

“Paying for college is one of the landmark financial burdens millions of students and parents face,” the lawsuit filed by Hagens Berman on behalf of plaintiffs Maxwell Hansen and Eileen Chang stated. “Families often spend years planning and saving to pay for college and many incur long-lasting debt, sometimes debt they cannot afford. It’s always been a major financial burden and has gotten worse in the last two decades.”

In the lawsuit, filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Hansen and Chang allege that the colleges and universities “engaged in concerted action to require noncustodial parents of applicants seeking non-federal financial aid to provide financial information.”

“That concerted action substantially raised the prices that plaintiffs and class members pay to attend college,” the complaint stated.

Boston College, Boston University, Brandeis University, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northeastern University, Tufts University, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute were the local schools named in the lawsuit.

College Board, which helps millions of students each year navigate that path from high school to higher education, is also named in the lawsuit.

Starting in 2006, College Board allegedly “made an intentional push” to require schools to agree to the consideration of the income and assets of noncustodial parents when making financial aid determinations.

“The efforts of defendants were successful as the university defendants collectively agreed to consider the income and assets of noncustodial parents when making financial aid determinations,” the complaint stated.

The plaintiffs allege that students who attend the universities and colleges named in the lawsuit pay about $6,200 more than schools that don’t require the finances of noncustodial parents.

“Students were told there were no exceptions to the requirement – even if a divorce court order was issued concerning college expenses. Formulas are then used to generate a financial aid offer,” the lawsuit stated. “Formulas are then used to generate a financial aid offer. The student then ultimately receives an estimate for the family contribution based on what the two parents can contribute, regardless of whether both parents do actually contribute.”

The full list of defendants include Northwestern University, College Board, American University, Baylor University, Boston College, Boston University, Brandeis University, Brown University, California Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon University, Case Western Reserve University, The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York, Cornell University, Trustees of Dartmouth College, Duke University, Emory University, Fordham University, George Washington University, Georgetown University, Harvard University, The Johns Hopkins University, Lehigh University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Miami, New York University, Northeastern University, University of Notre Dame du Lac, The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, William Marsh Rice University, University of Rochester, University of Southern California, Southern Methodist University, Stanford University, Syracuse University, Tufts University, Tulane University, Villanova University, Wake Forest University, Washington University in Saint Louis, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and Yale University.

If you are a noncustodial parent or a student with a noncustodial parent, you may be entitled to compensation. Click here for details.

Read the full lawsuit below:

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