Bureaucracy is not a contemporary phenomenon, it already existed in the age of ancient civilizations such as Chinese, Egyptian and Babylonian. This paper deals with the review of bureaucracy through history and by analyzing authors who have greatly contributed to the development of the concept itself. Furthermore, the paper deals with the economic view of the bureaucracy in order to understand the extensiveness of this term. After the theoretical part, it follows a survey of the population of Zagreb students. The research was conducted with the aim of contributing to the knowledge of student perception about bureaucracy in terms of gender, type of study, and a year of study. The sample included 96 students from three different higher education institutions - the Catholic University of Croatia, the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences - University of Zagreb and the Faculty of Electronic and Computer Engineering, and it was set up in March 2017 through an online survey that was posted on social networks such as Facebook and the Student Forum. The data obtained by analyzing data shows that most hypotheses have been rejected. What the results showed was the following. Respondents believe that the best information about bureaucracy is gained at university/faculty although they consider that the subject in their higher education institution is underdeveloped despite the existence of a course dealing with this topic. Furthermore, both sexes consider equally that bureaucracy is ineffective and how civil servants are employed through nepotism, they also agree that bureaucracy is more submissive to people with a higher economic status. In the end, regardless of the year of study, respondents believe bureaucracy is an ineffective form of organization.