The conflict between institutional autonomy and government control in higher education exists in all highly industrialized Western societies. In all of them, intermediary bodies between higher education and governments play an important role in policy making. Thus, the United States and Germany may be compared as two societies of the same basic type. But there are also basic differences in higher education/government relations in the two countries. Boards of trustees, multicampus systems and state boards of higher education do not exist in Germany, but there are functional equivalents. On the federal level, different intermediary bodies in the two countries have similar functions in solving similar problems in different ways and with different outcomes. The role of governments in higher education is traditionally stronger in Germany, whereas in the United States, in the processes of intermediation between higher education and the state, the non-governmental element carries greater weight.