The rise of education rentiers: digital platforms, digital data and rents

ABSTRACT

The education sector is fast digitalising all of its operations. A large part is driven by proprietary digital products and services developed and offered by for-profit companies that form the education technology industry. This article aims to introduce a theoretical focus of rentiership and assetization into the study of the political economy of education technology. It discusses five potential transformations that the education sector is undergoing as a consequence of digital rentiership. These transformation address new rentee and potential rentier roles of education institutions, nestedness of digital platforms and their terms of use, a rise of contractual governance within the education sector, re-institutionalising the sector, and tensions between competition and monopoly in digital education markets. These trends are not exhaustive and represent only the start of the analysis on rentiership in education. The paper concludes with an invitation for future research.

KEYWORDS:

• Education market
• digital platform
• digital data
• edtech
• rentiership

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Catherine Easton, Lancaster University; Jean Petric, Lancaster University; and Ngai-Ling Sum, Lancaster University, for their helpful suggestions and comments on earlier versions of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 These figures are provided by Holon IQ, an international edtech market intelligence company: https://www.holoniq.com/notes/16.1b-of-global-edtech-venture-capital-in-2020/ (last access 14.1.2021).

2 As of 14 January 2021, HolonIQ identified 19 edtech unicorns in the world: https://www.holoniq.com/edtech-unicorns/ (last access 14.1.2021).

3 One available information provided by HolonIQ is that globally, out of all spending on education, three per cent is spent on digital services and products: https://www.holoniq.com/notes/global-education-technology-market-to-reach-404b-by-2025/ (last access 14 January 2021). This figure might include more than monetary rents.

4 For example, HolonIQ predicts that in 2021, ‘tuition inflation comes to an end as governments and consumers demand improved access, affordability and stronger ROI [return on investment]’, by 2023, the ‘[i]ndustry credentials, alternative pathways to work and a progressively “skills” focused economy drives substitutes and alternatives’, and by 2025, the ‘[d]igital drives greater administrative productivity and efficiencies from a predominantly analogue foundation’. (https://www.holoniq.com/notes/10-charts-for-a-changing-education-market/, last access 14.1.2021).