US rejects American University of Afghanistan’s funding request

The U.S. State Department has rejected a $25 million funding request from the American University of Afghanistan for the next two years, The New York Times reported on Thursday.

The university has about 980 students, around three-quarters of them women, with about 90 percent based in Afghanistan. All students currently study online.

David Edwards, the university’s interim president, said the funding decision threatens one of the few remaining opportunities for Afghan women to pursue higher education from inside Afghanistan.

“We are the only venue for education for a whole generation of Afghans,” Edwards said.

The State Department said it would stop funding the university at the end of this year, citing what it described as a history of “repeated lack of accountability for millions of American taxpayer dollars.”

The university has been told that, as a condition for remaining open, it must partner with the American University of Central Asia in Kyrgyzstan. Edwards said he would work with the university, although its Kyrgyzstan campus does not offer remote instruction.

The State Department said the U.S. government remained committed to supporting education for Afghan women and girls through remote-learning programs and was working to identify organizations that could administer those programs.

The university faced allegations of financial mismanagement in 2019. Edwards said those issues had been addressed and that its audits have been clean since 2021.

Established in Kabul in 2006, the American University of Afghanistan received more than $225 million from the U.S. Agency for International Development since its founding.

Following the Islamic Emirate takeover in 2021, the university evacuated its foreign staff, while some students left Afghanistan and others remained in the country. Its Kabul campus is now used by the Afghan International Islamic University, according to the report.