Using a qualitative case study of the Polish higher education system, the article problematises the relationship between higher education and the public good. It emerges from an international comparative study including 11 national cases and contributes to the growing body of literature on the cultural specificities of the public good(s) in national higher education systems. Seeing the public good as a holistic ideal, transcendent to the higher education reality, it traces different meanings with which it is filled by main actors of the system: policymakers, representatives of collegial bodies, faculty and managers at two public universities (33 semi-structured interviews). The article discusses the public good in Poland in four areas: its general definition, the state's role in higher education, and national and global contributions. Contradictions exposed in the study of Polish higher education's discourses on the public good (national vs. global; state vs. academic community; mass higher education vs. elite higher education) serve the purpose of further elaborating the concept.