There is a current trend to see higher education primarily in terms of its utilitarian and economic role and its ability to deliver employable candidates to society. In this paper we seek to challenge such narrow understanding. Drawing on a previous analysis on how the current expansion of the New Public Management ‘logic of accountability’ increasingly intruding the governance of higher education, is threatening the moral dimension of professional responsibility –we will suggest ways to change and qualify the inner work of higher education in two directions to meet this threat: 1) to make (more) use of deliberative communication giving room for argumentation on issues seen from different perspectives and 2) to apply the use of deliberative communication not only in the theoretical, higher education seminars but also in the in-service practice of how to act in line with professional responsibility.