The status of English as a medium of instruction in higher education in Bangladesh has always been a contentious issue since public universities move back and forth for continuing with English as a medium of instruction or not. On the other hand, the introduction of private universities in Bangladesh complicated the issue even more. The medium of instruction in private universities in Bangladesh is invariably English, while public universities do promote English in all their official activities, and the teachers at public universities use both Bangla and English in their class lectures, leading to the questions of what is hindering them from promoting English and how are they confronting this challenge? In order to investigate these problems, this paper attempts to initiate the debate on the status of English in public and private universities at the tertiary level.