The financial aid antitrust settlement is a roughly $319 million payout from a class action accusing 17 elite private universities of using a shared formula to coordinate need-based aid, effectively overcharging about 200,000 students over two decades. Twelve schools have settled. If you paid anything out of pocket after grants and scholarships as a full-time undergraduate at one of the defendant universities during your school’s class period, you can file a claim by December 27, 2025.1The case is Henry et al. v. Brown University et al., filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
Who Is Eligible
The class covers people who received need-based financial aid as full-time undergraduates at any of the 17 defendant universities and still had costs remaining after grants and scholarships. Loans do not count as aid that eliminates eligibility; if you took loans to cover what aid didn’t, you paid out of pocket for settlement purposes.
Graduate students are not included. Neither are students who were not U.S. citizens or permanent residents while attending. A narrow group of university insiders is also excluded, including trustees, officers, financial aid directors, admissions deans, and in-house legal staff at the defendant schools, along with the presiding judge, his clerks, and their immediate families.
Class Periods by School
Eligibility turns on when you attended. For most of the 17 schools, the class period runs from the fall 2003 term through February 28, 2024. A few schools have different windows:
- Brown, Dartmouth, and Emory: fall 2004 through February 28, 2024.
- Caltech: fall 2019 through February 28, 2024.
- Johns Hopkins: fall 2021 through February 28, 2024.
The shorter windows for Caltech and Johns Hopkins reflect the shorter time those schools participated in the group at the center of the lawsuit.
How to File a Claim
File online at FinancialAidAntitrustSettlement.com or mail a paper form to the claims administrator, Angeion Group, at 1650 Arch Street, Suite 2210, Philadelphia, PA 19103. Online submissions and postmarked forms must be in by December 27, 2025.
You need to show you attended a defendant school during the class period. Acceptable proof includes a transcript, a diploma, a student ID bearing a date within the class period, tuition payment receipts, or a financial aid award letter showing your aid and remaining costs.
If you already filed a valid claim in an earlier round of this case, you do not need to file again. Prior claimants are automatically included in the newer Caltech and Johns Hopkins settlements.
Questions go to the claims administrator at 1-833-585-3338 or Info@FinancialAidAntitrustSettlement.com.
How Much You Could Receive
There is no flat per-person amount. Each claimant’s share is calculated on a pro rata basis using three factors: the number of years you attended a defendant university during the class period (capped at four), the average annual “net price” you paid (tuition, fees, room, and board minus institutional grants), and an inflation adjustment based on the Consumer Price Index. Your adjusted total is divided by the sum of every claimant’s adjusted total, then multiplied by the money available to distribute.
Before checks go out, the funds are reduced by attorneys’ fees, litigation expenses, administration costs, taxes, and service awards for the class representatives. For the Caltech and Johns Hopkins portion alone, class counsel requested about $11.75 million in fees (one-third of the $35.25 million fund), roughly $2.44 million in expenses, and $2,500 for each of the eight class representatives.
Settlement documents estimate that if about half of the roughly 200,000 eligible class members file, the average payout from the $284 million round would be around $2,000, and the average from the Caltech and Johns Hopkins round would be about $250. Actual amounts depend on how many people file and on your own attendance and net price.
When Payments Will Arrive
No payment date has been set. Distributions cannot begin until final approval orders are no longer subject to appeal and the claims process is complete. The $284 million round of ten settlements received final court approval on July 20, 2024. The Caltech and Johns Hopkins settlements received final approval on September 29, 2025.
Which Schools Have Settled
Twelve of the 17 defendants have agreed to pay. The University of Chicago settled first, for $13.5 million. In January 2024, Emory and Yale each settled for $18.5 million, Brown for $19.5 million, and Columbia and Duke for $24 million each. In February 2024, Dartmouth and Rice each agreed to $33.75 million, Northwestern to $43.5 million, and Vanderbilt to $55 million. Those ten deals together came to $284 million.
Caltech later settled for $16.75 million and Johns Hopkins for $18.5 million, adding $35.25 million. The combined total across the twelve settling schools is about $319 million.
What the Lawsuit Alleged
The complaint, filed in January 2022, alleges that the defendants violated Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act by using a shared formula to calculate what families could afford, operating as a price-fixing group known as the “568 Presidents Group.” That name comes from Section 568 of the Improving America’s Schools Act of 1994, which gave universities a limited antitrust exemption to collaborate on need-analysis methodology, but only if every participating school practiced genuinely need-blind admissions.
The plaintiffs contend the schools used enrollment strategies that favored wealthier applicants, which they say voided the exemption for the entire group. They estimate the alleged conspiracy overcharged about 200,000 students by a collective $685 million. In August 2022, Judge Matthew F. Kennelly denied the universities’ motion to dismiss, ruling the plaintiffs had “plausibly alleged” that the schools’ practices fell outside the exemption. Congress allowed Section 568 to expire on September 30, 2022.
Schools Still Fighting
Five universities have not settled and deny the allegations: Cornell, Georgetown, MIT, Notre Dame, and the University of Pennsylvania. Trial against them is scheduled for November 2026. Claims in this settlement are against the twelve settling schools; recovery from the five holdouts, if any, would come later and depends on how the remaining litigation plays out.