Helping to look after university in state of collapse (9)
I believe the answer is:
ruination
'state of collapse' is the definition.
'ruination' can be an answer for 'collapse' (I've seen this before). I'm not certain of the 'state of' bit.
'helping to look after university in' is the wordplay.
'helping' becomes 'ration' (a ration is a serving or helping).
'to look' becomes 'in' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'after' says to put letters next to each other.
'university' becomes 'U' (abbreviation for university).
'in' is an insertion indicator.
'in' after 'u' is 'uin'.
'ration' going around 'uin' is 'RUINATION'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for ruination that I've seen before include "total disaster" , "Utter destruction" , "State of destruction" , "Crippling defeat" , "Devastation" .)