Dive Brief:
- For-profit tech company CollegeNET Inc. is appealing a decision by a federal judge who rejected its antitrust claim against Common Application, the nonprofit leader in college admissions forms.
- The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that CollegeNET claims it has lost more than 200 customers in the last 10 to 15 years because of “anticompetitive and exclusionary conduct” by Common Application, which used to charge cheaper rates to schools that used its application alone.
- While Common Application has stopped that practice, CollegeNET seeks to get rid of the nonprofit’s requirement that member schools charge students the same fee for all application options, a practice it says obscures quality differences in the market.
Dive Insight:
The Coalition for Access, Affordability, and Success is working with CollegeNET to build a new online application designed to expand access for low-income and underrepresented minority students in higher education. That product, which is meant to rival the Common App, will give students the opportunity to start building a portfolio of work as early as ninth grade while also encouraging students to begin talking and thinking about college early — something wealthier students generally do anyway. The new application will also encourage more innovation across colleges in the types of questions asked of prospective students, something CollegeNET’s lawsuit alleges Common Application has limited as it rose to prominence in the admissions market.