The rise of the student estate

Since the emergence of the first medieval universities, student involvement in governance and management of higher education institutions has been a prevalent feature across the world. Higher education students have always had distinct rights and roles as students in higher education. Commonly, students organize into student representative associations - such as student governments, councils, unions, parliaments or guilds. I refer to this set of students’ rights, roles and authority, and forms of organization of student interests within higher education institutions and systems as the student estate. Student estate implies a distinct social status and political identities of students as a distinct social category. In this chapter, I argue that the contemporary reforms of higher education governance and management have strengthened students’ political agency. The chapter develops the conceptual tools to research the student estate, and revisits the key historical developments in student estate from medieval universities until present times.