The 568 Presidents Group was a consortium of American universities and colleges practicing need-blind admissions.
The group was founded in 1998 in response to section 568 of the Improving America's Schools Act of 1994.
[3] In response to several prestigious colleges and universities holding "Overlap Meetings" to set similar tuition and financial aid levels, the Justice Department began an antitrust investigation in 1989 and in 1991 filed a Sherman Antitrust Act suit against 57 colleges and universities.
[4][5] While the Ivy League institutions settled,[6] MIT contested the charges on the grounds that the practice was not anticompetitive because it prevented bidding wars over promising students from consuming funds for need-based scholarships and ensured the availability of aid for the greatest number of students.
Section 568 states that is not unlawful under the antitrust laws for two or more need-blind institutions to agree or attempt to agree: The amendment specifically prohibits the sharing of any information on the amount or terms of any prospective, individual aid award and makes clear that the exemption does not apply to the awarding of federal financial aid.