Quality assurance in modern higher education is both an accountability-oriented ideology and a technological method. It has also evolved into a increasingly rationalist and professionalized power mechanism. Its advocacy of compliance, technological mythology, and imbalance between power and responsibility are inherent disadvantages of higher education quality assurance at present. To sustainably improve higher education quality, the current concern must change from quality assurance to quality culture. We should reflect on and innovate the traditional quality assurance in higher education. At the same time, it is necessary to build a holistic quality culture among various stakeholders based on mutual trust and a social contract.