This paper discusses the evolution of private higher education in the Ukraine. It includes responses to a survey about the future of Ukrainian private higher education. Ukrainian higher education has roots going back to the 17th century. With a higher education system that was deeply and well rooted, the newly independent Ukraine did not face the challenge of creating a new higher education system, but it did need to adjust the existing system. Throughout the 20th century, Ukrainian education was shaped and controlled by central authorities in Moscow, but the leadership of the newly independent country worked to ensure that education also would be independent. The first private higher education began at the moment of independence, fall of 1991, and in June 1992 Ukrainian authorities started adopting rules regarding licensing, accreditation, and legal establishment of private institutions of higher education. By the beginning of the 2002-2003 academic year, there were 997 postsecondary institutions at all levels in Ukraine, and 175 were private. These institutions face a number of problems, and the responses of 43 Ukrainian educators and administrators make it clear that the future of private higher education is unclear. Government regulations limit the ability of state-owned institutions to become private, and the demographic gap in Ukraine is expected to have a dramatic effect on the higher education system. Kindergartens have been reduced as a result of the gap originating in the second half of the 1980s because of the Chernobyl disaster and economic uncertainty, and secondary schools are not at risk. Market competition among higher education institutions is predicted to become much stronger in the next decade. (Contains 22 tables and 69 endnotes.) (SLD)