Within the tripartite role of higher education, i.e., teaching, research, and social impact, the latter is the most undermined in the neoliberal capitalist ideology. In the past five decades, higher education systems and their institutions have been redefined as service providers to customers with the ultimate goal of producing the skilled (not necessarily competent) human capital for economic development of their societies. If the output of higher education is this Homo-Economicus, then universities are, by design, stripped from their social role, i.e., cultivating minds and educating the next generation of socially engaged and politically aware global citizens. In this keynote, while exploring the impacts of neoliberal ideology on higher education, I will argue for the necessity of a new social contract for universities, their curriculum, pedagogies, and quality assurance to revitalize and reinforce their social role as a response to global socio-economic inequalities, political populism, and war.