Private university (or private university) refers to a university mainly operated by private capital, generally refers to a university invested by non-local or central government, which relies entirely or partially on students' tuition fees instead of public funds to maintain the operation of the university, and the university has the right to choose its own students. Its main source of funds depends on tuition, donations, donations and other private funds to maintain its characteristics as an independent non-profit organization. However, it is also unusual for private universities to receive government funding. For example, the four colleges of Cornell University in the United States rely on federal subsidies, and "threatening" to reduce government subsidies can also change the established policies of Harvard University.

Private universities lead the top higher education in the United States, because the funds are easy to use, alumni and enterprises are willing to donate and enjoy the same government subsidies as public universities. Supported by scholarships, private universities often monopolize the best young students. As far as universities are concerned, the top 20 universities in the United States are almost all private universities, and their alumni and professors have won most of the Nobel Prizes in the world, such as eight Ivy League universities and the University of Chicago, Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, California Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins University and Carnegie Mellon University.