Forty of the top private universities in the United States are under fire after a lawsuit was filed accusing the institutions of conspiring to charge students excessive prices for their education.

According to the lawsuit, these universities deterred applicants from divorced or separated families by taking into account the financial backgrounds of non-custodial parents when determining financial aid packages.

Harvard, Cornell, Dartmouth, Brown and Yale, along with dozens of other top schools, were targets of the class-action lawsuit filed Monday by a Boston University student and Cornell University graduate in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

The lawsuit, which seeks $5 million in damages and a court order to end the alleged conspiracy, also involves the College Board, the nonprofit organization that developed the financial aid method allegedly used by the schools.

Universities conducted a “concerted effort” to require that an applicant’s non-custodial parents, i.e.

The class action lawsuit also alleges that the college board requires schools to consider this information when determining financial aid allocations, regardless of whether the noncustodial parent actually participates in or financially supports an applicant’s education .

“Students were told that there would be no exceptions to the requirement – ​​even if a divorce court order was entered regarding college costs,” the lawsuit says.

Universities created financial aid offers based on the financial situation of the applicant’s custodial and non-custodial parents. The lawsuit argues that these offers were based on a family contribution from both parents, even if one parent did not plan to contribute to the tuition fees.

The lawsuit adds that the College Board’s methodology was invented by people associated with the universities that used it. For example, the lawsuit alleges that the current chairman of the College Board’s Financial Assistance Assembly Council works at Columbia University and that Harvard’s director of financial aid was chairman of the nonprofit organization.

According to Hagens Berman, the law firm representing the case, the alleged “price-fixing” agreement increased tuition by about $6,200 compared to top schools that did not participate in the College Board’s methodology.

“The financial burden of college cannot be overstated in today’s world, and we believe our antitrust lawyers have uncovered a major impact on the rising costs of higher education,” Steve Berman, managing partner and co-founder of Hagens Berman, the law firm behind the filing, said in a statement.

“Those affected – primarily college applicants from divorced families – could never have predicted that this alleged system would exist and that students would receive less financial aid than they would in a fair market,” Berman continued.

The College Board’s push to include noncustodial parents’ financial information began in 2006, the lawsuit says, and never took into account the question of whether that parent would contribute to a student’s education.

The college board said in a statement that it had received the lawsuit and was reviewing it, but that it was “confident that we will prevail in this lawsuit.”

New York University, which was among the universities named, told NBC News that the lawsuit was not credible. “This lawsuit is without merit and NYU intends to vigorously defend itself and its financial aid policies and procedures,” NYU spokesman John Beckman said in a statement.

Harvard, Cornell, Columbia and Georgetown University told NBC News they could not comment on pending litigation.

Brown, Dartmouth, Yale, Fordham and the University of Pennsylvania did not respond to NBC News’ request for comment.