The university is the country's first institution modeled on Western-style higher education, committed to teaching, research, and service; it offers 11 master's and 8 bachelor's degrees.

When Armenia was struck by a devastating earthquake in 1988 the country, then still part of the Soviet Union, was opened to unprecedented international humanitarian and technical assistance.

Der Kiureghian and another earthquake engineer, Mihran Agbabian, Professor Emeritus at the University of Southern California, set out to realize the goal.

Der Kiureghian and Agbabian, along with the late Stepan Karamardian, formerly Dean of the A. Gary Anderson Graduate School of Management at the University of California, Riverside, presented their proposal to the Armenian government.

[12] The Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) and the University of California (UC) helped realize AUA.

The AGBU underwrote a significant portion of the operational funding; when the UC was asked for its assistance in founding the university, its president David P. Gardner appointed a task force led by Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs William R. Frazer to evaluate the possibility of an affiliation between AUA and UC.

Located next to the main building,[24] it has 100,000 sq ft (9,300 square metres) of space, which accommodates classrooms and seminar rooms, laboratories and research centers, and faculty offices.

[13] In 2005 the AUA acquired the Hye Business Suites Hotel located at 8 Mher Mkrtchyan Street in central Yerevan.

Upon successful completion of the first building, AUA Student Residence, the construction of the Najarian Center for Social Entrepreneurship started in mid-April 2021 and is set to open its doors in Summer of 2023.

As an extension of our well-regarded University of California system, AUA has planted and nurtured informed, critical thinking skills that will stand you in good stead throughout the rest of your lives.

There is another difference--when you talk to the students, you learn they are not there just for themselves, they are there because they want to make Armenia a better place to live for future generations.Notable individuals who have visited the university and/or have given lectures include: Several months after the violent crackdown of opposition protests on March 1, 2008, AUA, among other prominent institutions, refused to rent meeting space to opposition groups and democracy advocates under government pressure, according to Joseph Pennington, Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Yerevan.

[citation needed] On May 2, 2018, during the Velvet Revolution, a long list of AUA faculty members signed an open letter "unequivocally support[ing] the Armenian people's peaceful movement to restore social democratic values and fair, transparent elections."

The letter added: "We support the students, workers, and other citizens of Armenia who are collectively saying no to oligarchic rule, corruption, a biased judiciary, and other socio-economic injustices.