The following phrases have become familiar to anyone tracing the pressures universities face: They must lower costs, improve outcomes, measure deliverables, increase efficiency, become more flexible, produce innovation, increase graduation rates, assess attainment of measurable learning objectives, and offer students more variety in course delivery formats. We will examine how these recurring phrases reflect a dominant "narrative," a story about the nature and value of knowledge, learning, human potential, work, and democracy. That narrative is both reforming and deforming the way faculty and students experience higher education. Insights from the sociology of higher education can help us understand some of the social and economic forces and interest groups driving the narrative of reform: neoliberalism, corporatization, privatization, digitalization, and globalization.