Afghan Women Face Loss of a Rare Route to University Education as US Ends Funding

A student identified only as Laila woke in the night for a glass of water, glanced at her phone and found an email that changed her outlook. The United States would no longer fund the American University of Afghanistan (AUAF), one of the last places where women in the country can still pursue a degree.

Laila, who is in her mid-twenties, studies political science and international studies. Her name has been changed for safety. She is among roughly 1,000 AUAF students, about three-quarters of them women. The Taliban have seized the campus, so she studies in secret through the university's online program, joining lectures from home with classmates who use aliases and keep their cameras off. "I just know their voices," she said.

Her path has been long. When the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, she was at another Kabul university with only two exams left in the semester. After the Taliban announced its ban on women's education in December 2022, her degree stayed unfinished. She won a scholarship to AUAF and started again. "Not every girl got that opportunity," she said.

Fear shapes her daily life. Some of her peers have received threatening calls and messages, and she worries Taliban authorities could search her phone and find university emails. She said officials have entered her home several times to search the family's belongings. "It's always in the back of my head that maybe tomorrow it's my turn," she said.

The university opened in 2006, and former US first lady Laura Bush announced that the United States had committed millions of dollars to it. Bush said it would train "future leaders," particularly women. Patrick Fine, then Afghanistan mission director at USAID, the now-defunct American development agency, said many at the agency saw the idea as risky and some critics considered it a waste of money. The Bush administration, he said, saw a chance to stabilize a young democracy and build goodwill for the interim government that replaced the Taliban.

Support later drew scrutiny in Washington. US inspectors opened an investigation into the university's finances in 2016, and by 2018 they said poor accounting made it impossible to tell exactly how aid money was spent. John Sopko, a former US federal inspector who oversaw the probe, told DW: "I was surprised they were still funding AUAF."

This year, the State Department press office told DW the decision reflected the university's "history of repeated lack of accountability for millions of American taxpayer dollars." Fine rejected that explanation as "smear tactics." He acknowledged that earlier audits found the university struggling with USAID's extensive rules, but said they "didn't find major fraud." He called the university "a worthy investment" because it is one of the few organizations still reaching Afghan women.

The United States is not the only donor, but it has long paid most of the bills, nearly 90% as of 2018 according to a US report. The State Department said the university is "free to identify other funders and partners," so ending American taxpayer money does not necessarily mean the end of its operations. Still, without the $25 million grant that was refused, the university's future is uncertain.

For Laila, the news has been crushing. "I have lost all my motivation and hope," she said, adding that each time she prepares for a lecture she wonders whether another will follow. She has barely left her room since learning of the cut. She had expected to have graduated years ago and to be studying for a master's degree abroad. Now she thinks she may find a way in five or ten years.