Endowment brass meets with venture capitalists to address concerns about campus turmoil after the Hamas attacks on Israel.

Rice, Emory and Vanderbilt quietly settled last fall in a financial aid lawsuit against 17 institutions. Now pressure is mounting for the remaining defendants in the case. Emory, Rice and Vanderbilt Universities all appear to have settled in a financial aid antitrust lawsuit that accused 17 institutions of illegally colluding to limit student financial aid packages. The class action case filed in January 2022 alleges that the highly selective universities effectively operated a “cartel” by colluding in the way they calculated financial aid awards. As a result, thousands of students overpaid for their education, plaintiffs argue.

Using campuses as political foils is a tradition that goes back a couple of centuries. “Part of the tradition,” one expert said, “is to be surprised by it.”