'Data as technology' has always been, and continues to be an essential part of the structuring of South African society and education, during and post-colonialism and post-apartheid. In the reconfiguration of South African education post-apartheid, student data constitutes a data frontier as un-mapped, under-utilised and ready for the picking. This article maps the data frontier in the nexus of higher education in the global/colonial present and the data imaginary that provides a particular vision in service of a neoliberal discursive position and ideological orientation. As such, the data frontier acts as 'generative matrix' for educational policy attempting to address the legacies of colonialism and apartheid. The value contribution of this article lies in its positioning of the data imaginary in the context of a neoliberal approach to education in the context of the Global South.