In the last few years there has been a sea change in higher education. Student numbers have expanded overwhelmingly and the language of competition, privatization and the market has now arrived on campus, and no one knows quite what will happen next. This book's focus is an in-depth comparison, based on interviews with staff and students, of an ex-polytechnic in the inner city and a "new" 1960s-built university in the home counties. The interviews form the basis for a wide-ranging review and analysis of the current state of higher education addressing issues such as: what kinds of knowledge are useful in a technological society, the role of education in the economy, the distance between the rhetoric of democratic access to education and the experiences of many students, and the dangers of further polarization in the higher education sector. The book is full of information and insight, and should be of interest to anyone trying to understand Britain's changing universities. Patrick Ainley is the author of "Class and Skill: Changing Divisions of Knowledge and Labour".