Our universities are broken. Established as sanctuaries of truth and higher learning, they are now decaying institutions that are failing a generation of young people. Consumed by funding and admissions crises, mired in political scandal and governed by self-interest, their founding principles have been corrupted. This explosive book shows us why, and what we must do to fix them.

Matt Goodwin spent decades working as an academic in some of the world’s leading universities, delivering underfunded courses to increasingly disengaged lecture theatres, sitting on rudderless committees, counselling depressed colleagues and concerned students, watching standards slip and academic integrity decline.

At the heart of this crisis is an increasingly politicised campus. Once bastions of free speech, forums for open debate and incubators of bold new ideas, our universities are increasingly becoming monocultures, ruled by an ideology that is silencing respected voices, stifling discussion and violently shutting down diverse opinion, betraying intellectual freedom and failing to deliver the very basics of an education.

Unflinching, shocking and urgent, this first-hand account provides an insider’s view of how the founding principles of academia are in decline and why we should all consider what this means for the students of today, tomorrow and the world they will shape.