Broken Towers: Why Our Universities Are Broken and How We Can Fix Them

Depressed tutors and disillusioned students. Cheating parents and greedy vice chancellors. Welcome to the shadowy world of academia.

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Meet The Secret Professor: he/she has spoken at university Open Days, sat on committees, guides many through their degrees and spent decades climbing the increasingly greasy career ladder - only to realise that it is all bullshit. In fact, the system is broken at its core.

The Secret Professor tells it all. From outdated course structures and campus politics to what tuition fees are really spent on. From 'The Oxford Mafia', identity politics, culture wars and scandal in the #MeToo era to writing papers no one reads and turning ill-equipped lecturers into therapists and sexual health advisors, he/she lifts the lid on the shadowy world of higher education. Within the pages is a deeper truth - that most of us know someone who has gone to university, is studying at one or hopes to do so in future. Yet none of us know what's really going on.

Unflinching and thoroughly humorous, this first-hand account provides an insider's narrative on 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.

Matt Goodwin is an academic, writer, pollster, and campaigner. He has held academic posts at the universities of Manchester, Nottingham, and Kent, was seconded to a government department, and has worked with countless think-tanks, including the Royal Institute for International Affairs. From 2015-2024 he was professor of politics at the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Kent. He is the Sunday Times bestselling author of National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy and Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics.