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Hello and welcome to the excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor.

Today is Thursday October 31st, 2024,

and this is a special episode of the excerpt. With students across the nation's struggling with skyrocketing tuition and

crushing loan debts, a recent antitrust lawsuit accuses 40 of the nation's wealthiest

colleges and universities of overcharging students with divorced or

separated parents. Every Ivy League institution except for Princeton University has been named as a defendant in the suit, as well as the College Board.

The lawsuit comes as the Biden administration works to forgive certain borrowers federal student loan

debt which now totals more than 1.6 trillion dollars is the non-federal

student aid process a fair one. For more on this case, I'm joined now

by USA Today Education reporter, Zachary Sherman Lee.

Thanks for coming on the excerpt, Zach.

Thanks so much for having me.

Zach, walk us through the allegation here.

Yeah, so this is an antitrust lawsuit that was filed in a district court in Illinois.

Essentially, what it entails is there were two students, a former student at American

University in Washington, D.C. who then transferred to Boston University,

his name is Maxwell Hanson,

and then Eileen Chang, who is a former Cornell University student,

and both of them say that they're non-custodial parents, which is another phrase for parents who do not necessarily contribute financially to their children's well-being because of a divorce or a separation

or something of that nature. Both of these students say that they are non-custodial

...