Introduction / Richard H. Hersh and John Merrow
1. media : degrees of coverage / Gene I. Maeroff
2. Ready or not? : where the public stands on higher education reform / Deborah Wadsworth
3. College admissions : a substitute for quality? / James Fallows
4. Caveat lector : unexamined assumptions about quality in higher education / Jay Mathews
5. Liberal education : slip-sliding away? / Carol G. Schneider
6. Six challenges to the American University / Vartan Gregorian
7. Beyond markets and individuals : a focus on educational goals / Howard Gardner
8. This little student went to market / David L. Kirp
9. How undergraduate education became college lite - and a personal apology / Murray Sperber
10. America's modern peculiar institution / Frank Deford
11. Worlds apart : disconnects between students and their colleges / Arthur Levine
12. Leaving the newcomers behind / Roberto Suro and Richard Fry
13. Talking the talk : rhetoric and reality for students of color / Heather D. Wathington
14. It is only a port of call : reflections on the state of higher education / Julie Johnson Kidd
15. curriculum and college life : confronting unfulfilled promises / Leon Botstein
Afterword : what difference does a college make? / Richard H. Hersh
