Higher Education in the Age of Digital Rentiership
Digital platforms, data, and content have become valuable assets in the contemporary economy. Higher education is deeply embedded in this broader dynamic. Various organisations and actors, ranging from Big Tech to EdTech, from entrepreneurs to investors, attempt to benefit from digital rentiership – a strategy to collect economic value by controlling access to assets. While universities may grapple with organisation-level challenges of rentier strategies, such as technological, legal, and economic lock-ins, students and staff individually find themselves subject to nested rules and practices. In terms of the legal dimension, they are not only subject to national-level higher education legislation and university policies but also to the terms and conditions and privacy policies of digital product providers. Regarding the practice dimension, their academic freedom and stakeholder rights may be challenged. Considering the social dimension, the pertinent question becomes the social value of data and content and how this social value can be unlocked in the rentier political-economic arrangement. Emerging research indicates that student and staff rights and agency should be addressed and considered through the legal, practical, and social dimensions of digital rentiership. Moreover, public concerns in higher education have focused on these foundational questions about how higher education functions when it relies on proprietary digital infrastructure. This fireside chat will unpack and address digital assets and rentiership as a new mode of governance in higher education, along with the consequences for universities, their staff, and students.
