The U.S. State Department has rejected a $25 million funding request for the American University of Afghanistan (AUAF) and plans to halt all financial support for the institution by the end of the current calendar year.
The decision, reported by The New York Times on Thursday, October 1, could eliminate higher education opportunities for hundreds of Afghan women who, due to Taliban restrictions, can only access university-level studies through online programs.
David Edwards, the acting president of AUAF, stated that the university's continued operation has been made conditional on a partnership with the American University of Central Asia in Kyrgyzstan. He noted, however, that this is not a viable solution as the partner university lacks a remote learning program, which is currently the only way for women inside Afghanistan to pursue higher education.
"We are the only educational opportunity for an entire generation of Afghans, and this fact seems to be lost on the current administration," Edwards said.
In a statement, the State Department cited "a repeated history of a lack of accountability for millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars" as the reason for its decision. The university faced allegations of financial mismanagement under previous leadership in 2019, but Edwards insists that these past issues have been resolved and that all financial audits since 2021 have been clean.
AUAF currently enrolls about 1,000 students, all of whom study online. Approximately three-quarters of the student body are women, and nearly 90% of them reside within Afghanistan.
The university was founded in 2006 with major funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), receiving over $225 million since its inception. After the Taliban returned to power in 2021, its physical campus in Kabul was seized by the group and renamed.
Source: The New York Times
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