[5] Funding was provided by the United States government and the Open Society Institute, an NGO established by Hungarian philanthropist George Soros.

[6] In 2002, AUCA adopted its current name, to reflect both that its student body was drawn from many countries, and the university's goal was to serve the entire region.

The partnership allows students of American Studies, Anthropology, Economics, European Studies, International and Comparative Politics, Journalism and Mass Communications, Psychology, Sociology, and Software Engineering programs to receive liberal arts degrees fully accredited in the US.

[3] According to the USAID accreditation report, "AUCA is the first higher education institution in Central Asia that functions according to the American model, with a credit-hour system, an American-style liberal arts curriculum, and a commitment to democratic values, freedom of expression and inquiry, and academic integrity and honesty.

[11] In 2008 Iskhak Masaliev, then a Kyrgyz parliament member from the Party of Communists of Kyrgyzstan, called to change the location of AUCA, because of the "historic value" of the current main building.

[13] The building was designed by New York based architect Henry Myerberg and is located to the south of the central part of Bishkek.