Tim Tai, Senior Photographer

Yale will pay $18.5 million to settle an antitrust lawsuit, per a Tuesday-night court filing.

The class action lawsuit was brought in January 2022 against Yale and 16 other elite schools, all of whom had at some point been members of the 568 Presidents Group, a consortium that collaborates to determine formulae used to calculate need-based financial aid packages for students. The plaintiffs accused the colleges of practicing need-aware admissions and colluding to reduce financial aid given to students.

On Tuesday night, Yale joined Brown, Columbia, Duke and Emory in paying a total of $104.5 million to settle their portion of the lawsuit.

Section 568 of the Improving America’s Schools Act of 1994, provided an exemption to standard antitrust law, allowing any university that makes admissions decisions “without regard to the financial circumstances of the student involved or the student’s family” — or one that practices need-blind admissions — to share formulas for assessing students’ financial need. Section 568 expired on Sept. 30, 2022. 

However, the lawsuit alleged that, by favoring the children of donors for admission, members of what the suit dubs the “568 Cartel” did consider financial need, and were thus illegally practicing need-aware admissions.

The University denies any allegations of wrongdoing.

“Yale College’s financial aid offers meet the full financial need of each student, with none of the aid in the form of repayable loans,” the University wrote in a statement shared with the News. “This settlement contains no admission that Yale did anything wrong but allows the university to avoid the cost and disruption of further litigation and to continue its work in making undergraduate education more affordable for more families.”

Like Yale, Brown also maintains that it did not commit any wrongdoing, according to a press release issued on Tuesday night. Rather, Brown chose to settle in order to “focus its resources on further growth in generous aid for students.”

The five universities that settled on Tuesday join the University of Chicago and Vanderbilt University, both of which settled in 2023, and Rice University.

“As families nationwide face the pressure of rising college costs and student debt levels, Yale is proud of its 60-year tradition of need-blind admissions and its commitment to making undergraduate education accessible to students from all socioeconomic backgrounds,” Yale’s statement reads. “Yale College’s financial aid offers meet the full financial need of each student, with none of the aid in the form of repayable loans.”

Yale has practiced need-blind admissions for 60 years.