This study evaluated the precipitating and debilitating factors that occurred in the emergence and growth of the private university system in Nigeria. Three research questions guided the analysis and examined enrolment patterns in seven pre-2003 private universities, students' preferences for enrolment and the factors that encouraged and discouraged their emergence and growth in Nigeria. Data was gathered from published documents, research reports, government releases, memos, newspapers and the Internet and then analysed qualitatively, using tables and simple percentage computations. The study found that the private university system, having suffered an initial setback in the 1980s, has renewed success today because of the obvious failure of the public university system to adequately address multiple problems such as access, quality, funding, strikes, cultism, stability of the academic calendar -- which the private system has been able to overcome more effectively. However, it was noted that the private system is prohibitively expensive for the majority of qualified but indigent prospective applicants. The study recommends, in addition to special scholarship programmes, the design of a special student aid programme, accompanied by a traceable and institutionalised repayment system based on models found in certain developed countries. by Gboyega Ilusanya and S.A. Oyebade