Higher education is expected to enhance the nation state's competitive edge in the knowledge economy by producing graduates with multiple and transferable higher order skills. At the same time, institutional mechanisms have been introduced to enable students to act as consumers of higher education. The assumption is that fee- paying students who view education as a commodity will demand a high level of service and will utilise such mechanisms to force up the quality of course provision. This paper situates consumerism in higher education in the literature on new managerialism and the quasi-marketisation of public services. It draws on interviews with academics and students in the United Kingdom and on related studies in other national contexts to examine its impact on the teaching/learning nexus. The paper suggests that attempts to restructure professional cultures to comply with consumerist frameworks may unintentionally deter innovation and promote passive and instrumental attitudes to learning. This is likely to result in graduate skills which are inconsistent with the high skills economic strategies espoused by governments.