Universities have a long history of innovating and then giving away the value they create. That may not be an existential crisis when it comes to some products—like how the University of Florida gave the world Gatorade—but for higher education to outsource the development of metaverse-based education to Meta and other VR companies means nothing less than handing the tech industry another 20 years of dominance over the sector’s information flow and value. It’s not just bad business for higher ed, but it also runs counter to colleges’ commitment to free and open discourse. And more to the point, it would replicate a mistake whose consequences are still leaving scars across the landscape of higher education.
