Relationships with friends and professors make or break a student’s college experience. That deceptively simple observation has big implications for making higher education better. In How College Works, Daniel F. Chambliss, a professor of sociology at Hamilton College, and Christopher G. Takacs, a former student at Hamilton and now a doctoral student at the University of Chicago, use evidence from a longitudinal study of Hamilton students to explore how the college experience unfolds, and what students and especially colleges might do differently.

The Chronicle of Higher Education sat down with Mr. Chambliss earlier this year to learn more about the book’s “reliable, powerful, available, and cheap” recommendations for improving the college experience. You can watch the conversation here: