The article studies the main stages of development of national legislation regulating the management of a higher education establishment. It conducts the analysis of the works of modern scientists having dealt with the issues of regulating the activities of a higher education establishment in various aspects, issues of management information defining and systematizing, problems of legal regulation in the higher education establishment management and certain aspects of its statutory and regulatory support by international and foreign legislation, theoretical and practical aspects of administrative and legal regulation in Ukrainian education in the context of European integration. The paper analyzes and highlights three main periods of national legislation development on the higher education establishment management. The first stage of development of legislation on the higher education establishments management (XIX – 1920) is associated with the adoption of the Provisional rules about the higher education establishments management of the Ministry of public education of August 27, 1905 and legislative acts regulating the higher education establishments management. The second stage of development of legislation on higher education (1920-1990) is associated with the fact that during the existence of the USSR, the management of higher education had its own peculiarities, as far as the political system of Soviet government and the state apparatus differed from the modern state democratic structure, and on its territory there were state bodies that existed only under the communist regime. Higher education management was carried out centrally by legislative acts of both the republican and all-union levels, in the complete absence of autonomy of higher education establishments. Third stage of development of the national legislation on higher education management is characterized by the reform of the higher education system on the basis of adopted legislative and bylaws, especially, Ukraine’s Higher Education Act of 2014, the creation of conditions for the autonomy of the higher education establishment management, the introduction of bodies and institutions for monitoring the higher education quality standards and recommendations of the European Union.