On Tuesday, Penn was issued a subpoena by the House Judiciary Committee, which accused the University of inadequately submitting documents in the committee’s ongoing investigation into price-fixing in the Ivy League.
A July 1 letter — addressed to Penn President Larry Jameson — demanded documents related to Penn’s tuition pricing practices and communications with peer institutions. House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan and Judiciary Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform and Antitrust Chairman Scott Fitzgerald stated the documents must be submitted by July 22.
Brown University was also subpoenaed on Tuesday, bringing the number of Ivy League institutions that have faced these summonses — an escalation in Republican lawmakers’ scrutiny of higher education — to three. The committee issued Harvard University a subpoena last week for the same probe.
“Brown and Penn have failed to fully comply with the Committee’s investigation,” a press release read. “Now eighty-four days following the Committee’s initial April 8 requests to Brown University and University of Pennsylvania, their responses have been inadequate. Accordingly, the Committee is issuing subpoenas to obtain the documents and materials it needs to fulfill its oversight and legislative responsibilities.”
In the letter, Jordan and Fitzgerald wrote that the request for documents is to ensure that “existing civil and criminal penalties and current antitrust law enforcement efforts are sufficient to deter anticompetitive practices among higher education institutions.”
A University spokesperson wrote to The Daily Pennsylvanian that Penn has “promptly and consistently engaged with the Committee and all of the Chairman's requests including providing more than 8,000 pages of documents.”
“We will continue to cooperate with this investigation,” the spokesperson added.
Congressional Republicans announced an investigation into the Ivy League’s eight universities for alleged violations of antitrust laws on April 8.
An April letter sent to Jameson by the United States House of Representatives and Senate Committees on the Judiciary accused the Ivy League of colluding to raise tuition costs and engaging in unfair financial aid practices. The letter demanded that the University turn over documents related to admissions and communications by April 22.
The committees requested documents related to “policies or practices on financial aid,” as well as the “568 Presidents Working Group,” a consortium of American higher education institutions that practiced need-blind admissions before it was dissolved in 2022.
Other demands within the letter included files “referring or relating to the calculation or creation of tuition rates,” financial aid distribution, student admissions, and communications between Penn employees and third-party organizations — such as College Board and the Common Application.
Penn is now one of four universities that has yet to settle an ongoing lawsuit with the Department of Justice alleging that the 568 Presidents Group was a “price-fixing cartel” colluding to decrease financial aid and benefit wealthy students.
RELATED:
Congressional Republicans launch investigation into Penn, Ivy League, alleging price-fixing scheme
House subcommittee hearing condemns alleged Ivy League price-fixing, ‘administrative bloat’
The defendants claimed that information sharing among the universities decreased the amount of financial aid awarded to about 200,000 students over a 20-year period and used illegal price-fixing practices to overcharge them by $685 million.
