This paper examined the influence of ownership and type of university on work environment in South West Nigerian universities. The study population consists of all academic staff of the ten public and nine private universities in South West Nigeria. In all, 500 respondents selected from eight universities constituted the sample of the study. The respondents were selected using multi stage, stratified, purposive and simple random sampling techniques. The instrument tagged Work Environment Questionnaire (WEQ) was used to elicit relevant information from the respondents. The data collected were analyzed using frequency count, percentage and t-test statistics. The study revealed that the work environment of federal universities was favourable than that of state universities in terms of provision of physical facilities, information services, motivation, authority-staff relationship, participation in decision-making and staff development. The result showed that there was significant difference in the work environment of federal and state universities in favour of federal universities. The results also revealed that work environment in public and private universities was favourable but that of private universities was better than that of public universities. It also showed that there was no significant difference in the work environment of private and public universities. Based on the findings, it was recommended that owners of the universities should provide a favourable environment. (Contains 4 tables.)