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DIII Colleges Accused of Using Early Decision to Drive Up Costs

Lawsuit alleges early decision admissions reduces competition, aid packages for students

Author

Steve Ulrich
August 14, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 12 minutes

AUGUST 14, 2025 | composed by STEVE ULRICH
The news you want, the news you need on NCAA DIII. #whyD3
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🌇  Final Thursday of Our Summer Break. Back to our regular schedule on Monday.

🗞️ In Today’s Edition. 21 DIII Colleges Named in Early Decision Lawsuit. Can NCAA Stop Flood of Eligibility Lawsuits? GNAC Reveals Brand Refresh. Songless Summer?

TOP STORY
1. DIII Colleges Accused of Using Early Decision to Drive Up Costs

Macalester College

by Laura Spitalniak, Higher Ed Dive

“Almost three dozen selective colleges, including 21 NCAA Division III members, are facing an antitrust lawsuit that alleges they use early decision admissions to reduce competition and financial aid packages for students.

The lawsuit, filed last Friday, argues that early decision admissions — a college application option that ostensibly binds a prospective student to enroll if they receive an acceptance offer — allows colleges to artificially decrease competition, charge higher tuition rates and offer less financial aid.

Friday’s filings also named as defendants two college application platforms, Common App and Scoir, as well as the Consortium on Financing Higher Education, a coalition of selective liberal arts colleges that share information. All 32 defendant colleges either are or have been members of CFHE, according to the lawsuit.”

» Background. “Early decision is often marketed as a way to give students a better chance at acceptance to a highly selective college. But the process has come under significant scrutiny, with critics labeling it a form of affirmative action for wealthy students, who can afford to attend college even without competitive financial aid offers.”

» Why It Matters. “Students applying under early admissions lose out on the benefits of market competition, the complaint alleges. They apply to one college early and receive their acceptance offer — one they believe they are legally obligated to accept — before seeing their financial aid package. Therefore, they cannot compare their financial aid package against offers from other institutions.”

» The Bottom Line. “The lawsuit is seeking class action status to include current and former early decision students who attended one of the 32 colleges in the past four years and did not have their education covered by grants. It estimates the class would encompass tens of thousands of members, at minimum.”

» Of Note. The DIII institutions named are Amherst, Bowdoin, Bryn Mawr, Carleton, Chicago, Emory, Haverford, Johns Hopkins, Macalester, Middlebury, Mount Holyoke, Oberlin, Pomona, Rochester, Smith, Swarthmore, Trinity (Conn.), Vassar, Washington U., Wellesley, Wesleyan (Conn.), and Williams.

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LEGAL
2. NCAA’s Recent Wins May Not Be Enough to Stop Flood of Eligibility Lawsuits

by Amanda Christovich, Front Office Sports

“Since 2024, the NCAA has been hit with 33 lawsuits challenging various aspects of its eligibility rules - with the most recent filings coming just last week.

As a result, the fate of the NCAA’s eligibility rules remains unclear just weeks before college football season starts. Across the country, federal judges don’t appear to have found common ground on whether the NCAA can legally enforce rules about when players are eligible for NCAA sports. And even bigger splits may be on the horizon.”

» Field Awareness. “At the beginning of the 2024-25 season, the NCAA’s rules were as follows: Players got four years of eligibility, with some exceptions including the year they “redshirt” (sitting out a season of play in order to extend eligibility) or the year of the COVID pandemic. All four years must be completed within five calendar years. Playing full seasons at non-NCAA institutions, like at the junior college level, still counted toward NCAA eligibility.”

» Where It Began. “In November 2024, Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia started the flood of litigation. Within a few weeks, a federal judge in Tennessee granted a preliminary injunction allowing Pavia to suit up this fall for the Commodores. It was an early loss for the NCAA, which then issued a waiver for players like Pavia for the 2025-26 season. But it also spurred dozens of other athletes to file cases of their own.”

» Be Smart. “The NCAA is also appealing three decisions they’ve lost: Pavia v. NCAA, Elad v. NCAA, and Braham v. NCAA - a case brought by football player Cortez Braham Jr. in May challenging the NCAA’s JUCO rule and its five-year completion rule. In order to avoid further confusion, the NCAA has to win all three of these appeals. If it doesn’t, it faces the potential for a “circuit split,” when two different appeals courts issue opposing decisions. Those splits are sometimes resolved at the Supreme Court level.”

“The Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) partnered with SKYE, a leader in sports branding, to enhance and elevate the identity of the conference while maintaining traditional core values that were and are still important to the conferences identity heading into its 30th year.

The purpose of this brand identity and style guide is to equip the conference with a standardized set of graphic assets, color information, and usage instructions to unify membership, promote the league in all of its endeavors, and to build brand awareness nationally. After conducting further research from hundreds of coaches, student-athletes, and athletic administration, the brand narrative was inspired and created by two concepts, which were "Unbreakable Bond" and "Unstoppable Force.”

NEWS YOU CAN USE
4. Lightning Round ⚡️ 

» News. “The NCAA and Team IMPACT, a national nonprofit that matches children facing serious illnesses or disabilities with college sports teams, announced a strategic collaboration that will foster long-term relationships between collegiate student-athletes and youths to inspire and promote belonging, empowerment and resilience.”

» Mental Health. “To better support the mental well-being of student-athletes, Division III is working with the National Council for Mental Wellbeing to offer fully funded Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) for Higher Education training to institutions across the division, with a focus on head coaches and athletic trainers.”

TRANSACTIONS
5. Comings and Goings 

1 THING
6. Songless Summer

by Jason Lalljee, Axios

“If last summer boasted an abundance of refrains — "that's that me, espresso," "they not like us," "good luck, babe" — this summer is all crickets.

The search query "no song of the summer" reached an all-time high in July and "what is the song of the summer" is being searched more than ever before, according to Jenny Lee, lead data analyst at Google Trends.

If "song of the summer" is a numbers game, this year it's an open-and-shut case, with the title going to Alex Warren's "Ordinary," which just topped Billboard's Hot 100 chart for its ninth non-consecutive week.

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