Fifteen-year-old Tawny Matthews is a poor student who receives a scholarship to attend Ivoree Gates, an elite private school attended only by the children of the wealthiest in the nation. While at the boarding school, Tawny meets and gradually falls for Professor McCurdy, her handsome, enigmatic English teacher. Tawny also runs afoul of Dylan, the hot, arrogant, most popular rich boy in the high school and also the most feared, and he makes her life on campus a living hell. Will Tawny rise above the cliques and class structure of her new environment, and prove to the other students that money isn't everything?