Dear Friends,
I write to you with reflections on a year during which your extraordinary support has given a fresh new beginning to a university mission without parallel. Afghanistan remains the only country in the world where half of the population is expressly banned from education. The American University of Afghanistan remains the only university expressly dedicated to restoring that right while upholding education as foundational to any possible peace, security, and justice. We are grateful to the U.S. Department of State for continuing to support this work. And in a time of profound upheaval, we could not succeed without each of you in our greater community.
More than four years ago, AUAF made the bold decision to continue our mission after the fall of Kabul, and our students made the brave decision to continue their pursuit of education despite extreme uncertainty and risk. Those decisions, along with monumental generosity from so many of you, brought us to where we are today: entering our 20th year with more students enrolled than ever, including more women than ever, and greater confidence than ever in the impact and potential of our educational model.
What gives us confidence? You may reasonably worry that Afghanistan has been largely forgotten in much of the world, as other severe crises have dominated public discourse and international aid. Security in Afghanistan is fragile, diplomacy has made no progress, and life for most Afghans has not improved – in fact, for many it has worsened. Yet as one of my colleagues wrote to me recently,
پشت هر تاریکی، روشنی است
After every darkness, there is a light.
Most languages and cultures share this sentiment – enough that we might call it a universal theme. Our students often refer to their education at AUAF as “the light of hope.” As they recognize, we cannot passively wait in darkness for the dawn. We must do our part to ignite it.
We see it ignited in the many collaborations and partnerships that have coalesced around a shared mission and purpose. We also see it in something new that is happening. Instead of viewing Afghanistan in isolation, our partners today understand the complex intersection of our world’s many crises and the global scale of the challenges humanity faces.
This is why I am especially proud to announce the launch of the Bard Global Degree, bringing together disenfranchised students and faculty from numerous places in conflict and crisis, including Afghanistan, Myanmar, Russia, Ukraine, and South Sudan through a single, shared degree program with Bard College in New York State. AUAF’s first Global Degree cohort represents the vanguard of an entirely new way of imagining education for those to whom it has been denied.
In addition:
AUAF’s new offices at Georgetown University-Qatar now embed our efforts within the most visible and celebrated international studies program in the Middle East.
We have begun a new collaboration with BoodleBox, a collaborative platform designed for higher education and embracing purposeful, faculty-driven uses of AI for the very specific needs of Afghan students.
And our friends at Duolingo, a language learning platform, now enable us to assess more than 20,000 new applications each year.
That last number is no exaggeration and tells us everything about the demand for an AUAF education in Afghanistan. It is why we refuse to settle for the current situation, when we are able to enroll only 200 new students each year, all receiving 100% financial aid. Therefore, we pledge in 2026 to introduce new, affordable, high-tech certificate programs capable of reaching many thousands, building skills for employment, and generating capacity for Afghanistan’s workforce.
These are the opportunities to ignite “the light of hope.” It is true that our graduates face a more confounding employment environment than most in the world. Yet so many are successful after graduation because AUAF develops their ability to handle complexity, communicate effectively, and innovate their own opportunities. In Afghanistan, the quality of education they receive at AUAF is not a luxury. It is more than ever before a necessity.
AUAF’s liberal arts degree programs and high-tech training programs change lives and can change the world our students inhabit. Together, let’s make these programs available to all ambitious, talented, and hopeful young women and men in Afghanistan who see a future AUAF graduate in themselves.
With gratitude,
Ian Bickford
President
The American University of Afghanistan
“AUAF taught me that education survives because people choose to protect it, a truth I learned firsthand in 2016. As a graduate, I remain committed to that shared responsibility to keep education alive.”
Anil Qasemi
Co-chair of AUAF Alumni Consortium
