From Le Guin's THE DISPOSESSED:
“Sabul had ceased to be a functioning physicist years ago; his high reputation was built on expropriations from other minds. Shevek was to do the thinking, and Sabul would take the credit.”
And then later:
“Shevek's career, like the existence of his society, depended on the continuance of a fundamental unadmitted profit contract.”
There's a high concept nugget of a story there. An analogy for the rebellious independence of a small nation state from the tentacles of colonialism told through the microcosm of a post-graduate “rebellion” within a university setting.
Le Guin's story isn't that, but that would be a story worth telling, as it is my understanding that much of how universities operate is in need of complete reimagining.
I wouldn't be the one to tell it though. This would require the expertise of someone neck deep in university life and that ain't me.