A few fresh and soon-to-be college grads are now taking on some of the country’s most elite schools, claiming a rigged admissions system forced them to pay more and shut out competition. The case is D’Amico v. Consortium on Financing Higher Education. The plaintiffs allege that Early Decision policies artificially and illegally raised prices for certain students.
Meet the Plaintiffs
Alayna D’Amico, Max Miller, Bella “Jude” Robinson, and Bram Silbert are the named plaintiffs in this case.
D’Amico is from Cambridge, Massachusetts; Silbert is from Philadelphia. Both went to Wesleyan University for four years, graduating in May 2023. Both applied to Wesleyan through Early Decision (ED) back in fall 2018, got in, and started school the next year. The offer was presented as binding, meaning that Alayna and Bram were supposed to withdraw all other college applications and commit to Wesleyan, no matter what. Each of these students paid full price for every semester they attended.
Miller hails from San Francisco, California. He’s an undergrad at Washington University in St. Louis and is set to graduate in spring 2026. Max got into WashU through Regular Decision (not ED) and didn’t get any financial aid. He’s been paying full tuition every semester and will keep doing so until he finishes.
Robinson is from Philly and attends Vassar College as a full-time student. Jude applied to Vassar via Early Decision in fall 2021 and started there in fall 2022 after getting an offer that was presented as binding. Jude has received some financial aid each semester (grants, loans, and work-study) but still pays part of the full cost out-of-pocket.
The foursome brought a class action lawsuit on behalf of not only themselves but also the other students who similarly got burned by how some of the country’s most elite colleges run their admissions.
They say they were forced into paying more for college because these schools allegedly use Early Decision agreements to lock students in before they can compare offers or negotiate for better financial aid. They argue that this system hurts students, especially those who aren’t wealthy or super savvy about the admissions process. They also claim that it keeps tuition artificially high across the board.
Top Tier Defendants
Who are they suing? Seemingly, just about every elite college in the country.
The Ivy League schools are probably the biggest attention-grabbers for headlines about the lawsuit: Columbia, Cornell, Brown, Dartmouth, and UPenn. Another group that stands out are schools like the University of Chicago, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, Duke, Vanderbilt, and Rice. These are major research universities with national clout and huge applicant pools. Their decisions about admissions policies can set trends for other colleges across the country. Then you’ve got some smaller but still elite liberal arts colleges: Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, Pomona, Bowdoin, Carleton, Wesleyan, and Wellesley. Even though they’re not as big as the Ivies or major universities, they have outsized influence in academic circles and are known for being super selective.
In addition to a total of 32 schools, there are three non-school defendants listed in the complaint: the Consortium on Financing Higher Education (COFHE), The Common Application Inc., and Scoir Inc. COFHE is basically a club for top private colleges and universities that deals in “information sharing” among member schools. If you’ve ever applied to college, you probably know about the Common App: it’s the online platform that lets students apply to tons of schools with one application. Scoir runs the Coalition App, another online college application platform.
The schools getting sued have always been at the top of college rankings and have a ton of influence in American higher ed. But the plaintiffs say that instead of using that power for good (like making college more accessible), they’ve allegedly teamed up to keep prices high and lock out competition. The main way they do this? Early Decision.
Early Decision 101
Here’s how ED works: Each school has its regular admissions process, where students can apply to multiple colleges and compare offers. But with Early Decision, you get one shot — you apply to one school early (usually by November), and if you get in through ED, you’re supposed to accept that offer and withdraw all other applications. You also agree to pay whatever tuition and fees the school asks for (assuming your family can afford it after financial aid). It’s presented as a binding agreement, even though legally it’s not actually enforceable (most students applying through early decision are 17 anyway and can’t enter binding contracts).
You might be asking why anyone would go for this. It’s all about upping your chances of getting into your “reach” schools. Colleges admit a way higher percentage of ED applicants compared to Regular Decision folks. So if you’re desperate to get into a super-competitive school (like most of these defendants), you’re basically forced into playing the ED game, even if you’d rather keep your options open and compare costs.
But according to the plaintiffs, things are shadier than they seem.
Claims of Conspiracy
The complaint says these schools have made mutual agreements not to compete for students who’ve been admitted ED elsewhere. If you get into School X through ED and try to shop around for better financial aid at School Y or Z, tough luck. Those schools have agreed not to poach each other’s ED applicants and will remove them from their applicant pools in order to avoid doing so.
The plaintiffs claim that platforms like Common App and Coalition App help enforce this by only letting you submit one ED application at a time and requiring signatures from parents and counselors saying you’ll stick with your ED choice. The complaint says COFHE is in on it, too. Remember, its whole purpose is to share information among these elite schools about admissions and financial aid. This allegedly helps them coordinate their restraint-of-trade tactics.
The result? Students can’t compare offers or negotiate for better deals; colleges don’t have to compete on price or aid; tuition stays sky-high; and privileged students who know how to play the system win out over everyone else.
The plaintiffs argue that this whole ED system is a classic antitrust violation — a horizontal agreement between competitors not to compete for certain customers (students). They say it drives up tuition for everyone (not just ED admits) because there’s less incentive for schools to offer discounts or generous aid packages when they know their admitted students are locked in.
The plaintiffs claim that this “conspiracy” is also self-reinforcing: if any school tries to drop out of ED or break ranks by competing for other schools’ admits, they risk losing applicants or missing out on revenue. So everyone keeps playing along, even though lots of insiders agree it’s unfair.
Is this all just speculation by some angry students? The complaint quotes insiders at these colleges making some pretty damning statements. For example, Vanderbilt’s current general counsel wrote years ago that ED is basically an illegal customer allocation scheme. Georgetown’s longtime admissions director said ED lets schools “ration” financial aid because the pool is more affluent and there’s no need to compete on price. And Amherst’s former dean called the whole thing “preposterous” but admitted his school kept doing it because it was profitable.
What to Expect
The plaintiffs say that tens of thousands of others have paid more for college than they should have because of this alleged conspiracy. They want their money back and are asking the court to stop these practices going forward.
But antitrust and conspiracy claims are not the easiest to prove or win. These plaintiffs (or at least their lawyers) are going to have their work cut out for them, and it could take years and several rounds of appeal before anything is resolved. So stay tuned — we might just see the case make it to the U.S. Supreme Court.
But don't expect an early decision.
Related Resources:
- Do Colleges Need to Refund Classes Canceled Because of a Pandemic? (FindLaw's Learn About the Law)
- Affirmative Action and College Admissions (FindLaw's Learn About the Law)
- Could College Athletes Be Legally Classified as Employees? (FindLaw's Legally Weird)
