In 1991, the Justice Department descended in full force on the supposedly benign world of college admissions, bringing changes that reshaped the cost of higher education.

For decades, a group of 23 Ivy League universities and competitive colleges known as the "overlap group" met to discuss admissions and financial aid each spring at Wellesley, but the Justice Department charged that these meetings constituted a conspiracy to shield college tuition from competitive pressures.

"This collegiate cartel has denied [families] the right to compare prices and discounts among schools, just as they would in shopping for any other service or commodity," said then-Attorney General Richard Thornburgh.

The overlap schools settled with the Justice Department and eight years later, they continue not to speak to each other about specific financial aid offers.

Ivy League financial aid has not been the same.

"I think there are bidding wars," says Marlyn McGrath Lewis '70-'73, director of admissions. for Harvard and Radcliffe.

B. Ann Wright, an expert in admissions and financial aid and now a vice president at Smith College, goes further, calling the situation "chaotic."

"Students now get wildly different financial aid evaluations from different colleges," she says.

The overlap schools can now only discuss information in the public domain, she says, and are "really paranoid," bringing attorneys to meetings.

The agreement does contain exemptions to discuss certain principles. The Ivy League schools, for example, have a uniform policy of no athletic scholarships.

Still, admissions and financial aid policies have fallen victim to what Harvard Financial Aid Director James S. Miller calls a "chilling effect," adding that the policies of each school have developed "in isolation like the platypus in Australia," without the benefit of communication and collaboration.

"I regret the loss of opportunity to exchange ideas and philosophies," Miller says.

But while admissions and financial aid officers seem to have lost some of their control over their market, students may have benefited from the situation.

"Students have more leverage," Miller says. "There is more pressure to respond to aid changes [at other schools]."

Students who receive a higher aid package from one school than another can use the higher offer as a bargaining chip, threatening to attend the more generous school.