Elite Colleges Accused of Using Early Decision to Inflate Costs

Ivy League schools and other prestigious universities across the country are violating antitrust law by using early decision admissions policies to inflate the cost of higher education, according to a proposed class action.

Columbia University, Dartmouth College, and Duke University are among nearly three dozen higher-education defendants in a suit filed Friday in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts by three students and a graduate who accused the elite institutions of using misleading early decision agreements to inflate tuition costs and suppress their choice of other schools.

The colleges and universities, along with two major college application ...