Cornell, Georgetown, Notre Dame, MIT, and UPenn say that students fighting their bid to go straight to the Seventh Circuit on a ruling that teed up a trial over allegations that the schools fixed financial aid offerings "mischaracterize the questions presented and downplay Supreme Court precedent," insisting a prompt appeal would hasten the resolution of the case.

The universities are asking an Illinois federal judge to certify his summary judgment ruling from last month for an interlocutory appeal to the Seventh Circuit. His ruling for the students allows their claims to head to a jury. The students allege that a number of private schools agreed to limit the student aid they provide through the 568 Presidents Group.

At issue is the court's refusal to bar recovery for claims based on tuition payments made before January 2018, four years before the suit was filed, as well as the judge's conclusion that the students have standing to bring their claims, even though a number of the proposed class members' college expenses were paid for by their parents or others.

Despite the students' argument in opposition that resolution on the statute-of-limitations question wouldn't materially advance the litigation, the schools argued in a brief Tuesday that a Seventh Circuit ruling in their favor would "end 80% of the proposed class's claims, eliminate defendants' need to present evidence on timeliness at trial, and reduce the alleged damages to less than half what plaintiffs have already recovered through settlement."

"All of these facts show that certification would hasten resolution of this case of major significance for the remaining defendants and their current and future students and make more efficient use of the court's resources," the schools said.

The statute-of-limitations arguments are based on the "discovery rule," with the schools arguing that there's no reasonable basis on which the students can't have known about how schools were handling financial aid. The students countered that there's no dispute over the rule where different courts could come to a different conclusion, and that the district court followed controlling precedent over its application.

The Seventh Circuit should weigh in on whether a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling bars reading a discovery rule into the Clayton Act's statute of limitations, and if the Clayton Act does include a discovery rule, the court should discuss whether the rule's reasonably diligent plaintiff standard does not apply if the antitrust claim is sufficiently "complex" to relieve plaintiffs of any responsibility to investigate, according to the schools' brief.

"Plaintiffs do not contest that there are substantial grounds for difference of opinion as to whether the discovery rule applies differently, at the threshold, to 'complex' cases — an unresolved question that even plaintiffs seem to recognize no other court has answered the way this court did," the universities said.

And allowing an appeal on whether a plaintiff can establish antitrust injury based on an alleged overcharge paid by a third party will also promote resolution of the case, they said.