The 10 or so most eminent American private universities of the present century are very unusual in the world of contemporary higher education. Their uniqueness resides in their private character and in the distinction of their intellectual accomplishment. No other national higher educational system possesses anything like them. There are some private universities in a few other countries, but none occupies the position of eminence in their respective national system such as is possessed by those of the United States. There are also great universities outside the United States and within it which are more or less in the same class as the leading American private universities but they are public or state universities. The continent of Europe has or has had a few private universities. The Universite libre de Bruxelles was a private university, so is the Bocconi University in Milan. In Japan and the Philippines there are numerous private universities, but none has the place in its own national system or in the larger world of learning which is occupied by the leading American ones. There are numerous private colleges in India, but they are parts of public universities and, in any case, none of them, even the best, is on the level of intellectual distinction of the leading American private universities. Recent discussions in the United States have expressed doubts about the future of these private universities. The costs of maintaining them are so high that in the past few years a large proportion of them has been operating with budgetary deficits. The salaries of academic, administrative, secretarial, maintenance and custodial staff all increase steadily under the pressure of inflation; the two latter groups are organised into trade unions which strengthens their bargaining power. The cost of books for the huge libraries which are indispensable for the quality of research continues to rise; the demand for costly scientific equipment is insatiable. Services for students, counselling, medical and psychiatric and even child care, on a scale unknown in European universities, continue to expand. The increased numbers of graduate students who are married, and so require special housing provision, add to the cost. The effort to bring into higher education a larger number of negro students who must be provided with studentships is a further addition to costs. Of the leading private universities, at least four Columbia, Chicago, Harvard and Yale are in large cities and their immediate physical and social environment has deteriorated so that large expenditures, previously not needed, are required for security services auxiliary to those provided by the municipal police; these universities are also pressed by their slumdwelling neighbours, civic groups and their own student bodies to provide