Many books have been written outlining problems with higher education in America. Many have been written in broad strokes. Where specific, many others have tended to focus on some of the nation's most famous schools.

The average American family sends their children not to the Ivy League but to less noteworthy state schools, where quality could prevail but is often compromised. It is in such schools that many of the problems of American education continue to thrive without any meaningful reform. Levy's book endeavors to explain many of the problems which plague our schools and which shortchange students and their parents who pay the ever-higher costs.

Looking in depth at a typical university, Levy reveals the ways that silly, at times corrupt, administrative and union games, marginal disciplines, and mediocre, at times fraudulent, academics have gained unjustifiably significant positions in schools and have needlessly truncated valuable resources which could otherwise be used to promote genuine quality and make universities serve the students and citizens who foot the bills.