The higher education system, in addition to state-owned educational institutions, also included non-governmental ones, which had been created on the initiative of the intelligentsia and at the expense of commercial and industrial sectors. According to their status, these were private higher edu-cational institutions, whose activities had been regulated by special legisla-tion on private educational institutions. In Ukraine, as of 1907, there were nine state-owned higher educa-tional institutions (including three universities, five higher special educa-tional institutions, Theological Academy), subordinate to the Ministry of Public Education, the Ministry of Trade and Industry, the Holy Synod, and ten public and private universities – courses offering a university curricu-lum of pedagogical, medical and commercial economic fields (founded in 1905–1907). Located in major scientific centres – Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, Katerynoslav, Nizhyn – they were mostly courses attended by women. Kyiv Public Higher Women's Courses boasted the highest rate of attendance (over 2,200 students in 1908/1909). Despite this, there was continued strong demand in the Ukrainian region for qualified personnel. So, by the early 20th century, Ukraine had developed a higher educa-tion system, which, along with universities, theological and military ones, included higher special educational institutions of technical, commercial, medical, pedagogical, and agricultural fields. Among these universities, higher humanities educational institutions held a prominent place. The pe-riod of 1897–1907 demonstrated the highest pace of the higher education sector‟s development in Ukraine, featured both by an increase in the num-ber of universities and the number of students.