A debate over the issue of what is university - whether it is an enterprise or a public sector office - has been going on for years. The rise of a few hundred private higher education institutions indicates that universities should not be categorised under the public sector despite the fact that they are founded by the state. At the same time, universities are institutions with no owner and they issue diplomas bearing a national emblem. They can be founded by a natural person or a legal entity; a general partnership or the state; a particular individual or an association. Universities are under strict supervision by the Minister, and thus by the governement; yet the state in its capacity of the university founder is treated differently - more harshly - than the founder of a private institution according to the “Law on Higher Education” legislative act, which states that none of these universities are regarded as enterprises founded on the basis of commercial law. In the above mentioned act - referring to both state and private schools - a university is defined as “a school providing higher education, established in the way as defined in the act.
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