Ivy League Group Agreement to all intercollegiate sports, effective with the 1955–56 basketball season. This is generally reckoned as the formal formation of the Ivy League. As part of the transition, Brown, the only Ivy that hadn't joined the EIBL, did so for the 1954–55 season. A year later, the Ivy League absorbed the EIBL. The Ivy League claims the EIBL's history as its own. Through the EIBL, it is the oldest basketball conference in Division I. As late as the 1960s many of the Ivy League universities' undergraduate programs remained open only to men, with Cornell the only one to have
Black Ivy League 1999 to 2007, Ivy League colleges launched initiatives to make higher education more affordable, to the point that students from low income families can graduate debt-free. The University of Pennsylvania has expanded its financial aid program to the point that all students qualifying for financial aid can graduate debt-free. The "Journal of Blacks in Higher Education" notes that the significant increase in financial aid by Harvard and other Ivy League schools will make it difficult for other schools to compete for top African-American students. A study of the average wages of alumni conducted by Roland G. Fryer Jr. and Michael