Educating Asia's Women, One Scholarship At A Time

This year saw AUW’s enrollment increase to 1050 current students in 2021. Since its inception in 2008, AUW has graduated over 1200 scholars to become leaders in a variety of fields. AUW’s steady increase in its enrollment speaks to the urgent need for quality higher education for women. At a place like AUW, students are encouraged to debate, develop their own lines of inquiry, and envision how they can move the world toward a more equitable and just future.

Accessibility is a foundational tenet for AUW. AUW believes that given the resources, any woman can be a powerful advocate for her own community. Recently, AUW has focused its recruitment in areas where women have little access to intellectual and professional opportunities. There are ongoing efforts to reach daughters of migrant workers and farmers in rural areas; these women are often the first to attend college in their families. AUW also hosts the largest cohort – over 100 students – of Rohingya refugees of any university. And in the January 2021 admissions cycle, AUW welcomed ten new Indigenous students from the Chittagong Hill Tracts. In its focus on women from marginalized communities, AUW finds talented women who have been denied the education they deserve due to social pressures, familial expectations, and poverty.

To combat the idea that higher education is only for those who can pay for it, AUW is working on the launch of a campaign for fundraising 10,000 scholarships in 10 years. 85% of AUW students attend the university on scholarship. Often, they cite finances as the first barrier to education; women at home sometimes must marry young and work in below-minimum wage jobs to financially support their families. Thus, AUW is deeply committed to providing scholarships so that quality education is affordable to women who would not be able to pursue it otherwise.

In this period of remote learning, AUW students have undoubtedly encountered challenges. Poor Wi-Fi and Internet connectivity, inaccessible healthcare, and ill family members have been recurring hardships for AUW students at home. Yet many have risen to the occasion and begun tutoring children in their villages, volunteering with mask distribution, and raising awareness on COVID-19 prevention, to address the needs in their home communities. In this uncertain COVID-19 landscape, AUW students have again proven themselves to be adaptable and service-oriented.