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(CNN)Sixteen top US universities, including Duke, Vanderbilt and Northwestern, are being sued by five former students claiming those schools may be involved in antitrust violations in the way those institutions worked together in determining financial aid awards for students, according to the lawsuit filed in a US District Court in Illinois.
The complaint, which was filed Sunday, alleges that these private national universities have "participated in a price-fixing cartel that is designed to reduce or eliminate financial aid as a locus of competition, and that in fact has artificially inflated the net price of attendance for students receiving financial aid."
The suit is asking for class-action status to cover any US citizen or permanent resident who paid tuition, room, or board at these institutions within varying timeframes from 2003 to the present. The plaintiffs want a permanent injunction against this alleged conspiracy, and that they are also seeking restitution and damages to be determined in court.
[...] The lawsuit alleges nine schools (Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke, Georgetown, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northwestern, Notre Dame, the University of Pennsylvania and Vanderbilt) have "made admissions decisions with regard to the financial circumstances of students and their families, " thereby disfavoring students who need financial aid."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Friday January 14 2022, @08:12PM (14 children)
The single most educational sentence spoken to me during 6.5 years of "higher learning" at a private University. From my advisor to me when I was a Teaching Assistant:
"These are paying customers, if they show up they get at least a C."
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Mockingbird on Friday January 14 2022, @08:41PM (5 children)
My Prof told me: "Students are not customers, they are the product. Once they graduate (pass quality control), we sell them to the highest bidder. Doesn't matter what they want!"
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 14 2022, @10:00PM (1 child)
Sure that happened Ari but unlike you... normal people are not mentored by professor Epstein.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 15 2022, @06:37AM
Ari has not posted in this thread. Who are you responding to? Do you have voices in your head? Or up your Anus?
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Saturday January 15 2022, @12:55AM (2 children)
and the dumbest ones we give a PhD to and then abuse and exploit them as post-docs for, oh I dunno, as long as they can take until they kill themselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 15 2022, @03:35AM
The smart PhDs are the ones that organized their own funding, so they were not totally dependent on research funds from their thesis_advisor/professor. This might mean working a few years after a Masters before going back for the PhD, but well worth getting outside the academic-serf system. in the cases I know about, the outside funding (grant, company perk) allowed the student to pick their own PhD topic (assuming they could find an advisor to work with).
(Score: 2) by The Vocal Minority on Saturday January 15 2022, @05:21AM
Or become incessant SN trolls.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 14 2022, @08:44PM (6 children)
That is horrifying, I hope that attitude is not common. The destruction of education in the late 90s early 2000s for the benefit of bank loans and university grift is just shocking. Yet another example of conservative policies failing super hard and making the world a worse place, but just can't have even kids getting an education without someone making a profit! /barf
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 14 2022, @11:04PM (2 children)
Read John Taylor Gatto's works on the degradation of education. It was at the very least bi-partisan, if not led by the Democrats. Not all evil is automatically Conservative.
(Score: 2, Troll) by helel on Saturday January 15 2022, @02:30AM (1 child)
The AC you're replying to said "conservative", not "democrat." Yes, plenty of conservative democrats have helped burry our country. Waving their D around didn't make conservative policies any better for the US or its people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 15 2022, @06:01PM
Exactly, there are Republucan voters more progressive than some Democrat voters. That's why they have wedge issues, to make politics more emotionally driven which enhances tribal loyalty.
The trend in education to test and punish is very old-school conservative. Oddly it frequently is paired with financial cutbacks and mis-allocations of funds. Teachers get more students and more stringent rules. If students do poorly on tests it has real consequences for teachers. Punishment is necessary at times, but generally conservative policies use punishment as the basis for all 'solutions.'
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 14 2022, @11:31PM (1 child)
Don't even mention the student athletes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 15 2022, @07:33AM
They got their own NFTs now. They will be fine. Even if, as traditionally, they do not become more educated.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday January 15 2022, @11:00PM
I don't think you can pin it on conservative policies. Student loans have been pushed by Democrats to make higher education more "affordable." So what has happened is that for every additional $10K in student loans students could take out, college tuition magically went up by $10K. The increase in the price of a college degree has far outpaced inflation for decades now. If I recall correctly, there was a story on SN last year about a study that found that most of the increases went to sports stadiums and college administrators, not professors or student services.
That's greed, and greed is not limited to Democrats or Republicans. Meanwhile, fewer and fewer graduates can afford to pay off their student debt, or to buy cars, or houses, or to get married and start families, and all of that life stuff.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 14 2022, @11:37PM
The problem is that the customer often doesn't want an education. The customer wants credits and a diploma, so that's what universities are selling.