Based in Edmonton, CAUS is a non-partisan and active advocacy group looking to ensure a fully accessible and high quality system of education in Alberta.

Out of the ashes of the FAS emerged CAUS, which included all of the publicly funded universities in Alberta, and ACTISEC (Alberta Colleges and Technical Institutes Student Executive Council), which represented all of the publicly funded colleges and technical institutes and later became the Alberta Students' Executive Council (ASEC).

The original purpose of CAUS was to facilitate information sharing and networking between university students' unions and associations.

Since then, the emphasis of the organization has gone from being a networking group to an active lobbying and advocacy coalition.

In 2020, the Athabasca University Student Union became the sixth member.