A federal judge ruled on Monday that Penn must face trial in a lawsuit alleging the University participated in a decades-long scheme to reduce financial aid and benefit wealthy students.
On Jan. 12, a United States District Court denied Penn’s request for summary judgment, requiring that the case proceed toward trial rather than be dismissed before being presented to a jury. The ongoing lawsuit accuses Penn and 16 other universities of forming a “price-fixing cartel” that colluded to decrease the financial aid awarded to around 200,000 students over a 20-year period.
If found guilty, Penn and the other four universities that have yet to settle — including Cornell University, Georgetown University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Notre Dame — could face approximately $2 billion in damages.
“The claims of this lawsuit remain baseless and unfounded,” a University spokesperson wrote in a statement to The Daily Pennsylvanian. “We look forward to sharing the facts with the jury and to prevailing at trial.”
The lawsuit, filed in 2022, alleges that Penn and other institutions in the “568 Presidents Group” — a group of elite universities that coordinated financial aid principles under a temporary antitrust exemption — agreed on common methods for calculating students’ financial need that suppressed competition and inflated tuition prices.
“At a minimum, it is undisputed that all the universities were members of the 568 Group and collaborated on devising common financial aid practices, which they all at least partially implemented,” Judge Matthew Kennelly wrote.
Penn and the other remaining defendants argued that their conduct was lawful because it did not amount to explicit price fixing. Kennelly rejected their argument, writing that even agreements on shared standards “alone” are “concerted action to trigger further antitrust scrutiny.”
The University also argued that it should be dismissed from the case because it withdrew from the 568 Presidents Group in 2020, referencing a formal resignation letter it sent at the time.
The plaintiffs argued that the letter was insufficient to establish withdrawal because it did not “repudiate or disavow the Group or its goals” and instead used “amicable and even praiseworthy language.”
In the letter, Penn wrote that it was “proud to have been a member of the 568 President’s Group for the past two decades” and praised the group for providing “greater clarity, simplicity, and fairness to the process of assessing each family’s ability to pay for college.”
RELATED:
How two years of federal scrutiny shaped today’s Penn
Year in Review: How federal efforts to reform higher education affected Penn in 2025
Judge Kennelly wrote Penn’s resignation letter was “a far cry from repudiation” and that the law does not allow an alleged participant to “wash [its] hands of a dangerous scheme” that it had set in motion.
“You do not absolve yourself of guilt of bombing by walking away from the ticking bomb,” he added.
Several universities originally named in the lawsuit previously reached settlements totaling nearly $320 million.
The ruling comes amid broader legal scrutiny of Penn’s financial aid and admissions practices. In a lawsuit filed in August 2025, Penn and dozens of other universities were accused of using binding early decision admissions to avoid offering financial aid to students.
Penn has also previously faced a lawsuit challenging its use of financial information from noncustodial parents in divorced households. That case was dismissed by a federal judge in September 2025, who ruled that the plaintiffs failed to adequately allege harm.
