1993 was the year that MIT received what may have been its oddest holiday present ever--a December settlement with the Justice Department which ended a two-year legal battle and allowed a limited form of financial aid overlap.

After conducting a large-scale fight against the sharing of admissions and financial aid information, the government agreed that institutions of higher learning with full need-based financial aid and need-blind admissions can share some financial information about students who have been admitted to more than one of the qualifying schools.

The decision was hailed by MIT as a victory in its fight to once again allow the university to share financial aid information with the eight schools of the Ivy League, as was done from 1958 to 1991.

But while MIT may have won its battle against the Justice Department, members of the Ivy League seem to have almost given up on the overlap war.

The Official Word

The settlement, announced December 22, 1993, ended more than two years of litigation in an antitrust suit which charged MIT with joining the eight Ivy League schools to fix the prices of college educations.

According to court documents, "in 1991, the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department brought this suit alleging that the Ivy (League) Overlap Group unlawfully conspired to restrain trade in violation of section one of the Sherman Act... by (1) agreeing to award financial aid exclusively on the basis of need; (2) agreeing to utilize a common formula to calculate need; and (3) collectively settling, with only insignificant discrepancies, each commonly-admitted student's family contribution toward the price of tuition."

Harvard and the other Ivy League schools decided in 1991 not to fight the government. They signed a "consent decree" under which they agreed to stop the joint setting of financial aid awards.

In 1992, a district court found the Ivy schools and MIT guilty of violating antitrust laws. Last September, however, an appeals court ordered a new trial, declaring that the district court had not sufficiently debated MIT's position.

Court documents say the appeals judges "hold that the district court erred by failing to adequately consider the procompetitive and social welfare justifications proffered by MIT."

But the appeals court did rule that financial-aid guidelines are governed by federal antitrust laws, according to court records.

The new settlement permits colleges to share information about financial aid awards, but only among schools which guarantee need-blind admissions and full need-based aid. Individual family contributions cannot be determined.

After the Settlement

When the Justice Department first brought suit against the Overlap Group in 1991, most schools, including all of the Ivy League institutions, fell into line. But several top college officials, while staying out of MIT's court battle, expressed hope that the school would be successful.

"MIT did a really extraordinary job," President Neil L. Rudenstine says of the fight. "I think they fought a hard case for a long time with tremendous energy and lots of resources, so to reach a settlement at all was a major achievement."