Corporatizing university is among the typical strategic of higher education (HE) management that enables developed countries to successfully position their universities among the best ones in the world. In Indonesia, the varying quality of universities is infl uenced by several factors: limited funding, inadequate facilities, meager quality of lecturers and researchers, ineffi cient management, and ineff ective use of public spending. Th ese emerged as symptoms that point to a deep-seated obstacle faced by Indonesian universities, i.e., an inappropriate university management and fi nancing model. Th is study attempted to reveal the essential problem underlying the symptoms and share some thoughts of how to resolve them. It is concluded that corporatizing university in the country is considered among the most eff ective strategies to establish world-class universities in the archipelago.