The European Union has positioned lifelong learning at the heart of its competitiveness agenda, while universities are routinely identified as key actors in supporting citizens to learn throughout their lives. At first glance, higher education appears to be responding. Microcredentials are expanding rapidly. Professional and executive education continues to grow. Digital delivery has accelerated. Lifelong learning now features prominently in institutional strategies and national policy frameworks across much of Europe. Yet beneath this visible growth lies a more uncomfortable reality. European universities have become remarkably good at delivering lifelong learning. What they have not yet done, in most cases, is redesign themselves around it.