Includes bibliographical references and index.

The world of the professoriate -- Administrative overload -- Contingent education -- The golden dozen -- Teaching: good, great, abysmal -- The triumph of training -- Why college costs so much -- Fireproof: the tangled issue of tenure -- The athletics incubus -- Student bodies -- Visiting the future in Florida -- The college crucible: add students and stir -- Schools we like: our top ten list.

Calling for a thorough overhaul of a self-indulgent system, the authors make an incisive case that the American way of higher education, now a $420 billion-per-year business, has lost sight of its primary mission: the education of young adults. Taking readers on a road trip from Princeton to Evergreen State to Florida Gulf Coast University, Hacker and Dreifus reveal those faculties and institutions that are getting it right and proving that teaching and learning can be achieved--and at a much more reasonable price.