The Commodification of Higher Education and the Reconfiguration of Educational Value: A Reading from Service-Dominant Logic

Abstract

The growing adoption of managerial and market-oriented approaches in higher education has reinforced the figure of the student-as-client and positioned education as a transferable service, contributing to the marketization of educational provision and reducing learning to measurable outputs and short-term satisfaction. This article offers a theoretical reflection grounded in Service-Dominant Logic (S-D logic) to reframe the educational arena as a service ecosystem in which value is not delivered but co-created through interaction among actors and the integration of resources. Building on S-D logic’s core axioms, the paper argues that students, academics and institutions operate as integrators of operand and operant resources within value co-creation processes that materialize in contextualized learning experiences. It advances a shift from the student-as-client logic towards the student-as-actor, engaged cognitively, emotionally and behaviorally in the co-creation of value, and redefines the role of the university as an orchestrator of a relational ecosystem rather than a mere service provider. The contribution is conceptual and situated within marketing, showing that S-D logic provides a coherent framework to understand and critically respond to the marketization of educational services through a value co-creation lens that privileges learning, relationships and shared transformation over transactional exchanges.