Melbourne University Private (MUP) was a private university spinoff founded by the University of Melbourne in Australia, which operated from July 1998 to 2005. It was designed as a profit making venture, independent of as much government control as possible, in an attempt to maneuver around some of the limitations of legislation governing public universities. It was the brainchild of controversial former Vice-Chancellor Alan Gilbert. It also allowed the public university to operate a management model and mission more akin to private market-driven universities in the USA (like the University of Phoenix).

Melbourne University Private hoped to work very closely with large companies. They could, for example, pay for tailored courses or project work in their fields. The parent university hoped MUP would have enough of Melbourne's prestige to interest these companies, while keeping itself independent of suspicions of tainted research and teaching.

Its founding brought together most of the university's independent educational ventures, although some later fell by the wayside (Cain & Hewitt, 2004). MUP's main potential markets became businesspeople and students of languages and international development, both in Australia and overseas. A major part of its work was to be producing curriculum for distance education courses to be delivered through the Universitas 21 platform, and latterly in its own right.