As the principles and practices of quality assurance are further implanted in higher education, methodological questions about how to understand and manage quality become increasingly important. This paper argues that quality assurance determinations need to take account of how and to what extent students engage with activities that are likely to lead to productive learning. The idea of student engagement is introduced. A critical review of current possibilities for determining the quality of university education in Australia exposes limitations of quality assurance systems that fail to take account of student engagement. The review provides a basis for suggesting the broad relevance of student engagement to quality assurance. A sketch is provided of an approach for factoring student engagement data into quality assurance determinations.