This paper examines the current understanding of the development of graduate attributes in higher education. The current understanding is rooted in the system-based, behaviouristic approach that emphasises the identification of graduate attributes and curriculum mapping. This approach gives little consideration to more relational-holistic, person-based approaches that emphasise students' agency in determining which graduate attributes they develop, why they choose to develop them and through what means. Although the system-based approach is necessary, this paper suggests that the person-based approach supplements it by addressing the development of meaningful graduate attributes for students in their evolving life and career circumstances. The development of quality graduate attributes involves more than the alignment of what is intended, taught and learned; rather, it occurs through students developing personal graduate attributes in a self-directed and genuinely engaged manner. This person-based perspective, stressing student self-directedness, has important implications for higher education that has as a principal goal the enrichment of student graduate attributes.