Financial Aid Antitrust Settlement: Eligibility, Claims, and Payouts

If you attended one of seventeen elite private universities as a full-time undergraduate, received need-based financial aid, and still paid something out of pocket for tuition, fees, room, or board, you may be a class member in the financial aid antitrust settlement in Henry v. Brown University. Twelve schools have paid a combined $319.25 million into settlement funds, and any class member can recover from that money regardless of which of the seventeen schools they attended.¹

Who Qualifies

The settlement class covers U.S. citizens and permanent residents who were enrolled full-time as undergraduates at any of the seventeen defendant universities during that school’s class period, received at least some need-based financial aid, and paid some portion of tuition, fees, room, or board out of pocket in at least one year. Loans do not count as coverage. If grants and merit aid fully paid your costs every year you attended, you are outside the class.²

The seventeen schools are Brown, Caltech, the University of Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Emory, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Northwestern, Notre Dame, the University of Pennsylvania, Rice, Vanderbilt, and Yale.³

One point worth being clear about: eligibility does not depend on your school settling. A student who attended Cornell, which has not settled, is eligible to recover from the settlement fund on the same terms as a student who attended Vanderbilt, which paid $55 million.¹

Certain people are excluded even if they otherwise fit. University officers and trustees, senior administrators such as directors of financial aid or admissions, the presiding judge and his household, and anyone whose costs were fully covered by grants and merit aid every year of attendance cannot claim.⁴

The Class Periods by School

Eligibility is tied to when you attended. The class period runs from fall 2003 through February 28, 2024, for students at Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Duke, Georgetown, MIT, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Penn, Rice, Vanderbilt, and Yale. Brown, Dartmouth, and Emory begin at fall 2004. Caltech’s period starts at fall 2019, and Johns Hopkins begins at fall 2021, because both schools joined the 568 Presidents Group later than the others.⁴

You need to have been enrolled during your school’s window. A year of full-time attendance with need-based aid and any out-of-pocket cost during that window is enough to put you in the class.

How to File a Claim

Claims are administered by Angeion Group, LLC through FinancialAidAntitrustSettlement.com. Filing requires proof of enrollment during the class period, which can include transcripts, diplomas, a student ID, or financial aid award letters, along with a signed claim form submitted under penalty of perjury.⁴

Approved claimants can choose to be paid by PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, virtual prepaid card, or physical check.⁴

The most recent claim deadline, covering the Caltech and Johns Hopkins settlements, was December 27, 2025, and has passed.⁵ If you filed a valid claim in the earlier round covering the ten first-wave settlements, you were automatically considered for the Caltech and Johns Hopkins distribution and did not need to submit again.⁶

For questions about a filed claim, missing notice, or payment status, the claims administrator can be reached at 1-833-585-3338 or by email at Info@FinancialAidAntitrustSettlement.com.²

How Much You Can Expect

Individual payouts are modest. The Columbia Spectator reported an expected average of about $2,000 from the first-wave $284 million settlement, assuming roughly half of the approximately 200,000 eligible class members filed claims.⁷ For the smaller $35.25 million Caltech and Johns Hopkins pool, the anticipated average was about $250.⁸

Your actual payment depends on your net price during the class period, how many years you attended, and the total number of valid claims filed. The certified class after the second wave includes more than 74,000 members who have already submitted claims against a net settlement fund of roughly $220 million.⁹

What the Case Is About

The lawsuit, filed in January 2022 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, alleges that the seventeen universities used their membership in an organization called the 568 Presidents Group to agree on a shared formula for calculating financial need. The plaintiffs call this the “Consensus Approach” and say it kept aid awards lower than they would have been under real competition, forcing students to pay more.¹⁰ The complaint characterizes the coordination as price-fixing in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act.²

The group was named for Section 568 of the Improving America’s Schools Act of 1994, which gave schools a narrow antitrust exemption to coordinate financial need calculations as long as every participant practiced need-blind admissions. The exemption expired on September 30, 2022, after Congress declined to renew it, and the group dissolved weeks later.¹¹

All seventeen defendants have denied wrongdoing, and every settling school stated that its payment was not an admission of liability.³ The settlement amounts vary considerably by school. From the first wave, approved by the court on July 20, 2024, the payments were:¹²

Vanderbilt: $55 million
Northwestern: $43.5 million
Rice: $33.75 million
Dartmouth: $33.75 million
Duke: $24 million
Columbia: $24 million
Brown: $19.5 million
Yale: $18.5 million
Emory: $18.5 million
University of Chicago: $13.5 million

Caltech added $16.75 million and Johns Hopkins $18.5 million in the second wave, which the court granted final approval to by late September 2025.³⁶

What’s Still Coming

Five defendants have not settled: Cornell, Georgetown, MIT, Notre Dame, and the University of Pennsylvania.¹³¹⁴⁹¹⁵

Plaintiffs’ economic expert Dr. Hal Singer has calculated total class damages at $685 million, and the Sherman Act allows trebling of damages for a successful plaintiff class, so a verdict or later settlement against the remaining five schools could produce a second distribution to eligible class members.¹⁴ If you already filed a valid claim, keep your contact information current with Angeion Group so any future notice reaches you. If you never filed and your school was in the settled group, the existing claim windows have closed, but the same class definition is expected to apply to any recovery from the remaining defendants.

1
Financial Aid Antitrust Settlement. Financial Aid Antitrust Settlement Homepage
2
Financial Aid Antitrust Settlement. Caltech and Johns Hopkins Settlement FAQs
3
Forbes. Caltech, Johns Hopkins University Settle in Financial Aid Lawsuit
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Angeion Group. Financial Aid Antitrust Settlement Claim Form
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Financial Aid Antitrust Settlement. Submit Claim – Caltech and Johns Hopkins Settlement
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PR Newswire. Settlement Administrator Angeion Group Announces Final Approval of Caltech and Johns Hopkins Settlements
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Columbia Spectator. Court Approves Columbia Settlement for $24 Million in Class Action Financial Aid Lawsuit
8
Angeion Group. Notice of Class Action Settlements – Caltech and Johns Hopkins
9
Courthouse News Service. College Collusion Class Action Proceeds
10
U.S. Congress. Congressional Document on 568 Cartel Antitrust Litigation
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NAICU. Section 568 Antitrust Legislation
12
Reuters. U.S. Judge Approves $284 Million Settlements in Financial Aid Litigation
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Financial Aid Antitrust Settlement. Caltech and Johns Hopkins Settlement
14
Berger Montague. Henry et al. v. Brown University et al. – 568 Cartel Antitrust Litigation Moves Forward
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Bloomberg Law. College Students Get Class Certification in Financial Aid Suit