Buz and Stif Go to College begins with drift rather than aspiration. Buz and Stif have barely made it through high school, carried along by lenient grading and low expectations. With few job options available and no clear direction, college appears less as a calling than as a convenient extension of adolescence. Admission is easy, tuition is deferred through loans, and the future is imagined as something that will sort itself out later.

At Peabody State University, the promise of higher education quickly reveals its emptiness. Courses demand little, attendance is optional in spirit if not in policy, and administrators are more concerned with enrollment numbers than learning. Buz approaches college as a calculation, believing a degree will translate into opportunity. Stif treats it as a holding pattern after the end of his brief athletic career. Neither is prepared for the absence of standards or guidance.

The novel avoids caricature, allowing the institutional failures to speak for themselves. Professors are disengaged, systems are automated, and students are encouraged to feel successful without being challenged. Humor emerges from understatement rather than exaggeration.

Buz and Stif Go to College examines how higher education shifts from formation to management, and how young people adapt when institutions promise advancement while quietly lowering the bar.