Privatisation in higher education is not a new phenomenon for Western European countries. Authors like Geiger (1986), Levy (2008) and Altbach (1999) made challenging predictions in the 1970s and early 1980s that the private sector would inexorably diminish in size and significance. These predictions were triggered by globalisation and the enhancement of market forces in higher education, and particularly by the emergence of privatisation in parts of the world where it was never extant a decade before (e.g. Central and South Eastern Europe or Africa). The purpose of this article is to analyse private higher education in Europe based on a comparative perspective of relationships in different national private sectors of higher education through three research questions: (1) What is the meaning of privatisation in European higher education?; (2) What are the common elements and where are the differences in the European approaches to privatisation?; and (3) How important is the connection between the Bologna Process and the private providers of higher education? (Contains 4 notes.)