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Bad Education

Why Our Universities Are Broken and How We Can Fix Them

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Bad Education

By: Matt Goodwin
Narrated by: Matt Goodwin
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

THE EXPLOSIVE NEW BOOK FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF NATIONAL POPULISM AND VALUES, VOICE AND VIRTUE.

Depressed tutors and disillusioned students. Cheating parents, funding crises and faculty misconduct. Culture wars and campus protests. Welcome to the broken world of academia. Welcome to Bad Education.

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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, dominated by dogma 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.

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.

©2025 Matt Goodwin (P)2025 Penguin Audio Developmental Psychology Education Philosophy Political Science Politics & Government Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Social Psychology & Interactions Society Student Social justice

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Critic reviews

Buy this book. You could save yourself, your parents or children a lot of money. (Douglas Murray, bestselling author of The War on the West and The Madness of Crowds)
If you want to know how our universities became woke madrassas, this is the book to read. But it isn’t just a litany of complaints. Matt Goodwin also has a concrete plan for turning them back into universities again. Essential reading for anyone who’s been wondering how Britain’s once great higher education sector became a dumpster fire. (Toby Young, director of The Free Speech Union, associate editor of The Spectator)
Our universities increasingly resemble the pre-reformation Catholic Church, with academics as the new clerisy. They demand our submission to a corrupted faith and control access to the good life. But in Matthew Goodwin they have met their Martin Luther who has resigned from the church and, in this book, publishes his excoriating contemporary 95 Theses. An urgent call for reformation. (David Goodhart, author of The Road to Somewhere)
‘More than anything else, argues Matthew Goodwin, the cultural left sympathies of staff, students and bureaucrats are killing the golden goose of higher education in the West. Intolerant activists and administrators control the parameters of debate and cancel dissenters while subtler currents of political discrimination induce self-censorship and progressive conformity, strangling political diversity. Only democratic intervention from outside the university can save a noble institution that has been at the centre of western civilisation. Deeply personal and impeccably researched, Bad Education seamlessly blends ‘lived experience’, human tragedies and generalisable data into a rich, tight, fast-paced read.’ (Eric Kaufmann, Professor of Politics, University of Buckingham)
Matt Goodwin's critique of today's universities is fierce, but it is well buttressed by empirical data. Anyone who cares about these culturally and politically crucial institutions should take careful heed of what he has to say. (Nigel Biggar, CBE, Regius Professor Emeritus of Moral Theology, University of Oxford, and Chair of The Free Speech Union)
All stars
Most relevant  
Well presented, full of facts and revealing of the tragedy that has happened to British higher education.

A Tragedy well Told

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An alarming exploration of how universities silence voices they disagree with in favour of pushing one approved modern narrative. Immature, fingers-in-their-ears students and staff promote cancel culture to protect the right people's feelings. Just don't go against the groupthink, or there'll be trouble. Students aren't learning how to weigh up different views, they are taught what to think, and to shout down anyone who disagrees. As with everything written by Matt Goodwin, it's well researched and full of interesting statistics and examples.

The decline of critical thinking and balanced argument

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Admiration for this crucial call to action to call out a systemic corruption of intellectual freedom

The Sheer Determination

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I think Matt Goodwin has nailed it! At work and in my personal life if you try to challenge certain views (e.g. about about migration) or even just discuss things you are labeled as far right or a nasty person. the reality is I have never voted Tory and never will and I am white working class stock and look to the left and liberalism. I just feel we should explore things and discuss them openly! The fact that debate is being closed down at some of the best universities where people should be discussing everything and I mean everything (as long as it does not incite violence or hatred) is shocking. Whatever happened to the idea of taking on new viewpoints to explore them.?.. you may reject them completely but at least you have explored them. . I am a free thinker who is white and of direct Irish heritage (though born in England) and I have been racially abused for my Irish heritage. Yet I can see this ignorance has come from lack of understanding because people are too scared to discuss things. Its almost funny that there is a real irony here of free thinking liberals closing the door on debate because they think its 'the right thing' to do. Really? That's the time when we most need debate as they just get sidelined and used by political parties who really are at the edge of the political spectrum. . I can feel Mr Goodwins pain when I hear people being cancelled because they hold a viewpoint some don't like. Listen to Bad Education and make your own mind up. It is well presented and i don;t agree with all of it but it reflects my own experiences of being called 'far right' by people who I thought were friends simply for challenging a viewpoint! The book will certainly spark discussion which is what such books should do.

Reflects my work too and I don't work in a University

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I knew, but I didn’t know how badly education has been infected with the woke mind virus. Goodwin is an accomplished plain talker with a clear insight into the problems and need for an assertive approach to solutions. I was shocked at how corrupt our Universities have become.

Honest and shocking

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The title is misleading, It’s author’s political opinions. It’s not controversial, in some parts it’s just awkward, unless you like to discuss topics like vaccinations. The rest is just boring.

It’s bad politics not bad education

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I’m guessing he may be of the age that believes the legacy media news? To be against Israeli apartheid currently being investigated as war crimes does not mean you are antisemitic. As last night’s Israeli/Palestinian Oscar win acceptance speech for No Other Land well articulated, it is brave and urgent to question oversimplification of a conflict that spans decades. FreePalestine when I say it means peace not war. When the author critiques lack of free speech on campus, but then condemns universities for allowing protest, he undercuts his own argument. I am seeking a refund.

Misrepresents pro-peace campaigners as antisemitic

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I work in HE in the UK so this title caught my eye. I know that UK Universities are suffering and certainly not perfect. But this book was not at all what I expected - too many times I heard what the author was saying and can say categorically that this is not at all my experience or what is happening at my university. I don't deny that his story is true for him, but to take it and then use it as the basis to say that all university education in the UK, and to a large extent the US, is broken, is unfair.

I agree that I am perhaps one of those "woke liberals" that he seems to dislike so much, and he has his reasons, but as he made many, many statements on what those "woke liberals" think, believe and do I feel I can weigh in. I mostly disagree! I had not heard of the author before but did some research following my listen and sure enough, he has now moved to be a part of the conservative media who hates anyone not white, male and local-born so much. As I am none of those things, parts of this book were very hurtful and offensive - and not in a snowflake, triggering way but a real one, where I can't believe that someone would take others' good intentions and twist them to make them appear evil and devious.

I didn't want to finish this book, but I did anyway as I don't want to hide in my echo chamber. I wanted to take this unexpected opportunity to see how others think and even more, how others think that liberals think. I will acknowledge that the author made some valid points on UK universities (can't speak for those in the US, I don't work there) but his proposed solutions I feel would make things worse. I persevered with this book until the end - thank goodness it was relatively short! - and I felt terrible that some people think in this way. I wish I hadn't read it, as it contributed nothing to my life other than make me feel disappointed. There were no real solutions, just what felt like whipping up crowds into a frenzy and leading them with their torches and pitchforks to attack anything that doesn't agree with his worldview. This book feels like is advocating a huge step backwards in time to some mythical time when things were great, mostly because old white men were in charge. I can't agree with that.

I wish I had never read this

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