The author was a student in two "plate glass", welfare state universities, Essex (founded 1964) and Sussex (founded 1961), although they were very different. Essex was very small, socially very diverse and politically "exciting", to say the least--a sort of comprehensive university. His sociology teachers there profoundly influenced him intellectually and they taught him to think. Sussex, "Balliol by the Sea" as it was dubbed, had a very different social profile and institutional habitus but was pedagogically very adventurous. The author's aim as a researcher and a teacher became to provide tools for others to think with. He was produced and formed as a welfare state academic subject in these contexts. Over the past 20 years, he has been re-formed as a neoliberal academic subject. In this personal reflection, the author examines the growth of the neoliberal university during his lifetime and laments the commodification of academic practice and the commercial ethos of much of the higher education system. (Contains 2 notes.)