Abstract: The idea of a university and the idea of higher education are the two important concepts and stages in the developmental history of the philosophy on higher education. This paper mainly discusses the deduction and transmutation of the philosophy on higher education from the idea of a university to the idea of higher education, based on books of The Idea of a University by John Henry Newman and The Idea of Higher Education by Ronald Barnett. Research shows that the change from the traditional idea of the university to the modern idea of higher education is a gradual process, namely, a shift of essence from the theory of university entity to the theory of education ontology, which brought about some specific characteristics, such as the evolution of the logical relationship between teaching and research and the transition of the teachers and the students subjectivity.