This paper addresses the issue of corruption in higher education in Ukraine and its negative impact on universities. This paper discusses factors of external pressure on the higher education sector, which may be found in such areas as changes in higher education finance, research and quality of education, academic corruption, and the standardized testing initiative. The study argues that external pressure on universities comes primarily from the central government and is supported in part by the large scale education corruption. The external pressure experienced by universities manifests the duality of the aspirations for institutional independence with the de facto acknowledgement of financial dependency on the central government.