The call for a decolonized higher education in 2015 (#RhodesMustFall) flagged that all was not well in higher education in South Africa. Student voices that initially petitioned for the eradication of the Western episteme in the curriculum soon included a call to decolonize university structures, including human resources and institutional processes, and culminated with a call to end university fees (#FeesMustFall). For many South African students, if they are lucky enough to make it to university, the start of a better life is enshrouded in debt, institutional alienation and exclusion, language challenges, and cultural intolerance. In this context, is it the responsibility of higher education to address historical legacies? This paper posits three responses. First, universities ought to be a public good. As such, it needs to be responsive to the needs of society, in terms of skills development, but also the values of citizenship. Second, as extensions of the democratic political economy, universities have the responsibility to mirror the values of this political disposition in their policies and practices, and third, given the political transition, higher education spaces are third spaces/ borderlands and are powerful in their ability to effect change. It is pivotal that universities use this power to demand transformation – for students and for society. The discussion contributes to the expanding discourse of decolonization in the Global South, as well as the debates around the role of higher education in the context of crises and neoliberalism.

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