The Digital Divide in Higher Education: A Systematic Review with the Three-Level Digital Divide Model and PEOPLE Framework

We systematically reviewed 36 peer-reviewed studies from 3829 articles across 25 countries between 2018 and 2023. Our PEOPLE framework—psychological determinants of learning, educational opportunities, educational processes, learning outcomes, and educational effectiveness—captures the impact of the digital divide on the university learning experience from a multidimensional perspective. Findings show the divide persists in both developing (56%) and developed (44%) countries, with research emphasizing access over skills or benefits. Academic performance was most studied (n = 16), followed by psychological determinants (n = 13), highlighting how digital inequities affect students’ emotional and cognitive toll. The divide cascades through the interconnected components of the PEOPLE framework: restricted educational opportunities limit access to learning resources, disrupted educational processes undermine engagement and skill development, compromised psychological determinants affect students’ mental and emotional capacity for learning, diminished learning outcomes reflect immediate academic impacts, and reduced educational effectiveness threatens long-term career prospects and socioeconomic mobility. We urge interventions addressing all dimensions and expanded research on how digital inequities shape learning beyond resource access. Future studies should adopt interdisciplinary approaches to explore how the digital divide perpetuates educational and socioeconomic inequality in a technology-driven world.