This book, which examines Canada's university system in the 1990s, is a follow-up to a 1984 book that was critical of Canadian undergraduate education. Educational finance, college admission standards, gender and racial issues, tenure, academic freedom, and scholarly writing and publishing are among the topics discussed. The charges against the Canadian university system are: Canada's publicly supported universities are in deep trouble in 1997, with federal transfer payments being slashed and provincial funding declining; sexual harassment and a "chilly climate" for women have paralyzed the universities of Victoria, British Columbia, and Manitoba; students are facing high fees and low career expectations, while standards are declining in the high schools and in the universities themselves; tenure has transformed into job security without effective review; political correctness is being felt in the "traditional" university freedom to speak out and academic freedom to research and write about any subject; the universities, under the influence of provincial governments, are becoming frightened of ideas; the "publish or perish" trend continues, but increasingly what is published is unreadable to the public and often to other scholars; and the function of subsidies for publication needs to be examined, with an end toward fewer and better scholarly publications. An index is included. (SW)