Tokenization and NFTs: A Tokenized Income Sharing Model for Higher Education as a Potential Solution for Student Debt in the USA

Abstract

This study focuses on how to tokenize educational assets and discusses how tokenization and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) can be operationalized and adopted to the higher education landscape to provide funds for students during their higher education studies. To that end, it builds upon the income-contingent loans and higher education funding literature to propose a system that captures the value of the student’s potential future income streams as a token to be offered to higher education stakeholders willing to invest in a young person’s future, make an impact toward the Sustainable Development Goals, or simply, to diversify their portfolios and hedge against market downturns. The Future Income Token “FIT” is conceptually devised through a literature review and builds on previous findings by the author. This interdisciplinary study fits into the blockchain, crowdfunding, and higher education finance literature. Given the increasing difficulty of mobilizing funds for higher education and, the almost universal, growing student loan default problem, it asks the question: What aspects of higher education tokenomics may give higher education stakeholders the incentive to contribute to a student’s education, that other forms of financing do not? Policy makers, practitioners, as well as theoreticians can benefit from the ideas and the findings of the study. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.