This study examines the effect of establishers and sponsors on operating performance regarding private universities and colleges. By applying the schools’ financial and nonfinancial data of academic years 2005 through 2010, I find that the performance of schools do not sponsored by neither enterprises nor religious organizations is better than that of schools sponsored by religious organizations. It indicates that the characteristics of establishers and sponsors of schools have a significant impact on the operating performance of the private universities and colleges. Both educational reward and subsidy funds from the private donations are positively correlated to schools’ performance. As predicted, the acquirement of private donations can improve school performance as for private universities and colleges. Furthermore, the performance of schools sponsored by enterprises is also better than that of schools sponsored by religious organizations in my additional analysis. Among control variables, university organization is positively correlated to schools’ performance. It indicates that, compared to other schools, university organization has larger size, higher reputation and larger extent of operation, and hence results in better school performance.