A Yale spokesperson says that the New Haven university is also concerned about the limits of the agreement.

"We have concerns about the restrictions. Not as they pertain to us, because they don't really pertain to us, but as they pertain to other institutions," says Gary G. Fryer, Yale director of public affairs and special assistant to the president. "The restrictions are onerous."

Cornell spokesperson Sam R. Segal says that the school is especially reluctant to enter into an agreement with the Justice Department--in part because it is reconsidering its practice of full need-based financial aid due to financial pressures.

"We'd have to make a commitment to stay that way. It's something that's unrealistic to ask colleges to do," Segal says. "It's a precarious situation, particularly for schools that have a smaller endowment. And Cornell is relatively small per student."

Other schools are saying they will stick with their need-determined financial aid policies, but not because of the terms of the agreement.

"Columbia, fortunately, can continue to admit students on a need-blind, full-need basis," Rupp's statement said.

"We're going to stick to our policy, and a good number of other institutions will stick to their policies," Rudenstine said. "That's a little different than signing an agreement under the Justice Department's supervision to commit to that."

Rudenstine also says that the agreement has effectively prohibited many schools from participating in even limited overlap.

"It seems clear to me that of the maybe 30 or 40 institutions, including the group of liberal arts colleges, who used to exchange [information]... the number that could conceivably think about this would be vastly reduced, if any," he says. "Even the Ivy League institutions are thinking very hard."

Rudenstine says that he doesn't expect the settlement to result in schools adjusting their admissions and financial aid policies to fit the requirements.

"You might imagine relatively no change in the number of institutions committed to need-blind/need-based," he says. "They might not see this sign-up as particularly helpful to them."

Outside the Ivies

Although all of the Ivy League schools have policies of need-blind admissions and full-need based aid, many of the liberal arts colleges which shared information do not have such policies.

"For the overwhelming majority of American colleges and universities, fulfilling these twin pledges--however desirable in theory--is in fact an economic impossibility," Rudenstine says.

Green says he agrees with Rudenstine. "As the settlement is written...it is, in fact, very difficult for schools to sign an agreement," he say. "Harvard could, a number of other universities could, but many universities comparable to Harvard, many of the original members of the overlap group, could not sign anything."