Slaughter and Rhoades track changes in policy and practice, revealing new social networks and circuits of knowledge creation and dissemination, as well as new organizational structures and expanded managerial capacity to link higher education institutions and markets.

Clarifying the regime's internal contradictions, they note the shifting public subsidies embedded in new revenue streams and the emphasis less on serving than on leveraging resources from student customers. Defining the terms of academic capitalism in the new economy, this groundbreaking study offers essential insights into the trajectory of American higher education.