What evidence is there of collusion and price gouging among America's
top private universities?

First the easy part - Price Gouging - 

Most private schools do not charge students the full cost of their
education.  They have grants, endowment funds, gifts etc that cover a
significant portion of their budget.  In effect, colleges are
providing a service at a loss.

Due to recent declines in the martket (where endowments are actively
invested, tuitions have had to be increased to make up the difference:
One such article documenting this is at:
http://www.aas.duke.edu/development/Miscellaneous/tuition_nytimes.html
(Which is a reprint of a new york times article)

Another interesting article covering college costs is at:
http://money.cnn.com/2004/10/18/pf/college/college_costs/

On to Collusion:
In the 1990s, the justice deptartment opened an investigation of
collusion in the awarding of financial aid at private universities. 
In 1991, about 23 universities signed a consent degree of collusion. 
This group became known as the "Overlap Group".
(you can read more at :http://www.antitrustinstitute.org/recent/140.cfm)


In 1994- Congress passed  a bill (might have another name) called 568
that provides an exemption to the Sherman anti-trust act that allows
colleges to collude on the what portion of tuition a student on
financial aid will have to pay.  Currently, there are 28 private
universities that are part of this group.
(568 is cited in:http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2003/0901/060_print.html)

To conclude, colleges do currently collude in terms of financial aid,
but have been given a federal exemption.

Search terms
College, 568, collusion, overland group, justice department.

-VBallGuy 
(not a GA Researcher)

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In order to get your money's worth from college or university, you
have to apply for the right jobs.  Monster, careerbuilder, hotjobs,
etc, are the kind of sites that could discourage any job seeker. The
ratio of jobs to job seekers are so disproportionate. You have 100
people applying to the same job. These numbers don't look too
favorably on anyone seeking employment.

Job seekers can look toward sites like www.foxpen.com