This is how I understand the collusion argument made in the article: The Ivy's could collude on managing their endowments. Having a large pile of money to inv

This is how I understand the collusion argument made in the article: The Ivy's could collude on managing their endowments. Having a large pile of money to invest is a form of power, you may have some limitations on how you invest the money, but you can favor one player over another (as Bill Gates does). Gifts to universities often come with strings attached, requiring they be used for specific purposes. This is a pure exercise of power, unrelated to the academic mission of the schools. In some sense the school becomes a front for the power exercised through the endowments. The collusion also does not have to be explicit, they can collude by watching what the others do and doing the same. I once asked my boss when I worked at an Ivy League school why didn't they admit more students when there were so many applicants? They'd have to build more dorms, but they were already building an enormous number of structures and they owned lots of land. He said those students could just go to school elsewhere, go to a state college, the school had no obligation to teach them. So by keeping the school elite-oriented and limiting enrollment, essentially the mission to teach was lost. The school wasn't there to teach people who wanted to learn, they were there to teach only the best of the best. Combine that with admissions driven by donations. Their mission becomes propagating the elite, not building a better world through education. They don't want to expand their capacity to teach, they want to increase their ability to control power.