It tells how the author, a journalist turned college professor, came face to face with Generation X: jaded, unachieving, highly demanding yet lacking any respect for standards or intelligence.

To survive, the author had to give up old-fashioned educational goals in exchange for mindless titillation and coming across as a cool and unassuming guy. Partly as a wry experiment, Sacks decided to pursue this approach remorselessly, treating his twenty-something students like a kindergarten playgroup, and by so doing he became a spectacular 'success' as a 'teacher'.

"Peter Sacks's from-the-trenches account of contemporary college teachings makes for a disturbing read. But wake-up calls always are, and this one means to take no prisoners where the dumbing down of higher education is concerned. It will certainly shock and probably offend, but anyone who ignores its assessments does so at our collective peril". — Sanford Pinsker Editor, Academic Questions

"So far the best depiction of these attitudes is in the new book, Generation X Goes to College .... the book goes well beyond conventional arguments about slackers, entitlement and dumbing down". — John Leo U.S. News & World Report

1. pt. 1. Thesandbox experiment
2. ch. 1.Coming into teaching
3. ch. 2.Culture shock
4. ch. 3. Thecastle, with apologies to Franz Kafka
5. ch. 4.Reflections on the worth of teachers
6. ch. 5."We are grownups now" --ch. 6.Where all the kids are (way) above average
7. ch. 7.Hooked on hand-holding
8. ch. 8."Hey, Dad, put it on pause!" --ch. 9. Thesandbox experiment
9. pt. 2.Education in postmodern America
10. ch. 10. Thepostmodern revolt
11. ch. 11. TheBalkanization of knowledge and power
12. ch. 12. Thepostmodern spectacle and Generation X
13. ch. 13.Postmodernity and the entitlement society
14. ch. 14.Adapting to a postmodern world.