Higher education is a hybrid creature, sitting at the intersection of state, market, civil society and the private sphere and commingling elements from each one. This hybridity is key to the resilience and dynamism of higher education, even while it renders organizations within it vulnerable to chronic conflicts over mission and purpose and ongoing legitimacy challenges. Mitchell L Stevens deploys this bit of theory to shed fresh light on contemporary demands for universities to demonstrate their relevance or “impact.” He also considers how universities face fresh competition for their core functions of education and research. Mitchell L Stevens is Professor of Education and (by courtesy) Sociology at Stanford University, where he also co-leads the Stanford Pathways Lab. He studies educational decision making, the quantification of academic performance, and the political economy of higher education in the US and worldwide.