It tells the story of 35-year-old Jesse (Radnor) who has a romantic relationship with Zibby (Elizabeth Olsen), a 19-year-old college student.

[4] Jesse Fisher, a 35-year-old college admissions officer in NYC who loves literature and language, is newly single and dissatisfied with his life and career.

He believes the happiest time of his life was the years at his unnamed Ohio liberal arts college, where he could study uninterrupted, surrounded by others like him.

Peter Hoberg, his former English professor, invites Jesse back to the college to attend his retirement ceremony.

He also encounters his old romantics teacher, Judith Fairfield—a woman he has long admired—and meets the eccentric Nat, and Dean, a brilliant but depressed student who, like Jesse, always carries a book with him.

After Jesse helps avert Dean's suicide by overdose, he advises the young man to stop hiding from life within books.

The consensus states: "While it's hard not to wish it had a little more bite, Liberal Arts ultimately succeeds as a good-natured – and surprisingly clever – look at the addictive pull of nostalgia for our youth.