The study explores factors that affect the performance of responsibility accounting at public universities in Vietnam. The study conducted a survey of 130, out of 154 public universities in Vietnam and uses regression analysis methods. The results identify eight groups of factors affecting the performance of responsibility accounting at these establishments of higher education: Division of the organization into responsibility centers, Estimation and Reality, Cost and income allocation, University autonomy, Management decentralization, Estimation, Reward, and Report. Costs and income allocation for responsibility centers, university autonomy, and the division of universities into responsibility centers are shown to significantly affect the performance of public universities in Vietnam. The results show that the performance of responsibility accounting at public universities in Vietnam is influenced by decentralization of management, division of the organization into responsibility centers, reward, cost and income allocation, estimation, evaluation of the results achieved between the estimation compared with reality, release of reports and university autonomy. Among the factors, cost and income allocation, university autonomy, division of the organization into responsibility centers, reward and evaluation of results achieved between estimation and reality have strong impacts. The study findings also indicate that the school council does not affect responsibility accounting at these universities.