The Parsons Plan took a many-pronged approach to higher education:

• The college would embark on an aggressive student recruitment campaign. This involved drawing students from the East, Mid-West, and West in roughly equal proportions. Likewise, students would be recruited from the upper, middle, and lower thirds of their high school graduating classes. The best students would be offered full scholarships.

• In the belief that all students had a right to be exposed to the best academic minds available, a ranked professor taught a 3-credit course with three hours per week of formal lecture. All full professors had earned doctoral degrees. An academic specialist (usually holding a masters degree) would have a small classroom seminar two days per week to review the lecture notes, encourage discussion and questions, and give weekly quizzes. A tutorial center was available to all students.

• A "Scholar in Residence" program was established to expose students to top academic instructors. This resulted in published authors teaching freshman-level humanities and history courses.

• The professors were to be compensated at a level previously available only to top faculty at major universities like Harvard and Yale. At one time, in the 1960's, they were second in pay only to Harvard. Other perks included loans for real estate purchases and membership in the local country club.

• Based on the idea that the primary function of faculty was to teach, Parsons had no "publish or perish" ethic. The professors Roberts recruited had already proven their academic mettle in other institutions; at Parsons, their sole responsibility was to teach. All faculty were required to keep extensive office hours, ensuring their availability to all students.

• Because Dr. Roberts felt that everyone deserves a second chance, he recruited heavily from among those who had flunked out of more traditional colleges and universities. Thus, Parsons became known in some circles as "Flunk-out U,"[1] and was a haven for male students trying to avoid the Vietnam draft. These students were dismissed from Parsons if they did not maintain at least a "C" average after acceptance.

• Finally, believing that a college campus that stood empty for the summer was a waste of money, Roberts changed the term system to one of three trimesters, each four months long. They ran from October through January, February through May, and June through September. A student who could only afford two trimesters a year could skip a term at any time, thus avoiding the inevitable competition for summer jobs. Furthermore, to make a summer in Iowa more appealing, the summer trimester offered not only the usual full complement of classes, but also a Fine Arts Festival, for which professional talent was brought in to perform with and for the students and town.