High school senior Bartleby "B" Gaines (Justin Long) is a slacker at studying and is getting rejected by every college he applies to. Several of his buddies are in the same situation, too. So how does a guy facing a bleak college career please his parents and get noticed by his dream girl Monica (Blake Lively)? Simple! Open his own college! B and his band of misfits fool their parents and peers and create their own college: South Harmon Institute of Technology.

They clean up an abandoned psychiatric facility, employ a buddy's brilliant - but subversive - uncle (Lewis Black) as the dean and create a fake web site as their campus calling card. A college is born! There’s one snag: the friends have done their jobs too well. Dozens of other college rejects show up for classes at the fake college, and the swelling student numbers fuels friction with the privileged college nearby. With his future in the balance, it's going to take more than just fast talking, charm and trickery to keep B out of jail as he strives to get the girl, keep his friends, impress his parents and run his college!