This article explores why university reform is central to the Labour government's project to create a "modern" Britain. During the passage of the 2004 Higher Education Act the government created a policy narrative which redefined the role and purpose of universities. It framed their futures as corporations, based more on an economic than an educational rationale, and competing to provide educational services to paying consumers. The government presents marketization as the only possible way to solve the funding crisis and tries to make its interpretation of the future for universities seem obvious and inevitable. Even though critics show how the Act may exacerbate differential access and reinforce disadvantage, and thus work against the government's vision for modern Britain, the policy narrative is becoming authoritative, if not yet hegemonic. The article places the government's discourse within an international context to re-examine the complexity of the concepts and arguments on which the policy narrative rests and open up space to consider alternative futures for universities in Britain and in new world orders.