In this chapter, the authors conducted a study on higher education governance of big data. Big data can be described as the amount of data created which is beyond the technical capacity to be efficiently processed, stored, and managed. There are six objectives for the study, which are to investigate the characteristics of big data in higher education, in how big data contributes to higher education, how to govern big data in higher education, the higher educational governance models, the roles of government in managing higher education and the big data initiative in the developing nations. Kitchenham methodology is adopted in this study to carry out a systematic literature review. The finding, therefore, reveals that the characteristics of big data include value, velocity, volume, veracity, and variety. The findings show that big data contributes to higher education by given real-time feedback, monitor students'school performance. It shows that big data can be used for the detection of attrition risk, data visualization, students's skill estimation, and grouping and collaborations among the students. It also shows that big data can be governed through provisions of information security, compliances, and ensuring privacy. This chapter, therefore, contributed data quality and accountability as other methods of governing big data. Therefore, the authors recommend the future study to cover data stakeholders in higher education.