This paper asks whether higher education should primarily be about helping learners develop a general intellectual capacity in accordance with a libertarian-humanist conception of education, or whether it should provide training schemes for specific technical competences aimed at employment. Drawing on Lyotard’s ideas about narrative discourse, it argues that a revitalised and overtly instrumental narrative of the purposes of HE learning has emerged, promulgated by government, policy-makers and employers, which advocates HE learning almost exclusively in terms of economic expediency and employability. The revitalised narrative is geared towards shaping the expectations of new HE learners, many of whom are being modelled as life-long learners. The discussion explores the role of the wider society, and of the HE community itself, in allowing this revitalised narrative to take root and asks whether the older, expressive narratives of HE learning can be revived. Is it possible to restore balance between the libertarian-humanist and the economic expediency models of HE learning, between the ‘hero of knowledge’ and the ‘hero of liberty’?