The American University in Bosnia and Herzegovina (abbr. AUBiH) was a private university located in Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In 2021, the State Investigation and Protection Agency raided the university, arresting the founder and owner Denis PrciÃÂ on suspicion of issuing diplomas illegally. American University ceased operating following the investigation into PrciÃÂ.
The founder and president of AUBiH was Denis PrciÃÂ, an entrepreneur from Tuzla who earned a bachelor's degree from Rochester Institute of Technology in 2004.
Under a 2006 agreement with the State University of New York at Canton (SUNY Canton), AUBiH hired mostly American lecturing staff to teach at its Tuzla campus, while higher-level courses were taught through online courses by faculty located in Canton, New York. American faculty members were later fired and replaced with native Bosnians, allegedly to cut costs.
Notable faculty included Semir OsmanagiÃÂ, a businessman best known for promoting the pseudoscientific Bosnian pyramid theory, who was an anthropology professor from 2011 to 2012.
In 2007, the university opened a postgraduate department in Sarajevo, offering a fast-track master's degree in business administration (MBA). In 2009, it opened an undergraduate department in Banja Luka. In 2011, AUBiH opened an undergraduate department in Mostar.
The University was organized around the following colleges:
The university offered degrees in law, economics, international relations, cyber security and engineering. In 2012, its website also listed doctoral degree offerings in those fields, thought it was not accredited to run PhD programs.
In 2006, soon after its founding, AUBiH partnered with SUNY Canton with the intention of fostering educational development in a region still recovering from the Bosnian War. AUBiH students involved in the program received double diplomas from both the US and Bosnia & Herzegovina and paid a reduced tuition rate for classes taught by SUNY Canton. There were opportunities for work placement with American companies including Xerox, Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson and Kodak.
However, over the next few years, SUNY Canton received reports from professors and students at AUBiH highlighting concerns about its academic integrity and the leadership of its president, Denis PrciÃÂ. Former professors claimed that university officials had hacked into their emails; had encouraged them to fail students that PrciÃÂ disliked; and had been personally threatened by PrciÃÂ. Students encountered unexpected tuition increases and majors that were advertised but did not exist, which led some to drop out, while others struggled to recover prepaid tuition for undelivered courses.
SUNY Canton reportedly dismissed concerns for years, until March 2011, when the SUNY system's head of international programs found that "AUBiH was not meeting SUNYâÂÂs academic criteria". The universities' relationship ended in November 2011, following disputes over tuition and payments.
In June 2012, West Virginia University announced a partnership with AUBiH, which was still active . In September 2015, AUBiH expanded its international partnerships to include Western Kentucky University, Saint Louis University, Fontbonne University in the US; Saint Paul University in Canada; Northwest Normal University in China; and DoÃÂuà  University in Turkey.
On June 18, 2021, authorities searched American University and arrested its founder, Denis PrciÃÂ, and two other university employees. The Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina charged PrciÃÂ with abuse of office, document fraud and destruction of official records, accusing him of issuing a forged American University diploma to Osman MehmedagiÃÂ, director of the Intelligence-Security Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Prosecutors initially became suspicious when MehmedagiÃÂ, following the annulment of his degree from the University of Banja Luka, submitted a diploma from American University, which he had never mentioned attending before; he was required to have a degree to qualify for his position.
Investigators discovered that pages had been torn out of the student registrar books, and new ones containing MehmedagiÃÂ's name had been inserted. The server containing American University's student data, which was missing during the search, was found hidden in a vacation home in Semizovac; it did not contain MehmedagiÃÂ's name. In violation of a court ban on meeting witnesses, PrciÃÂ pressured one witness to give false testimony and attacked another at a shopping center in Sarajevo, though he claimed it was in self-defense. The prosecutor's office later expanded the investigation, suspecting that American University had issued other forged diplomas, including one to Amina PekiÃÂ, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs employee whose brother worked for MehmedagiÃÂ.
Emails were also discovered showing PrciÃÂ had demanded students pay a fee toward the university's American accreditation with ACICS in 2020. This was despite the university already being reaccredited until the end of the year, and despite him withdrawing the university from further accreditation so it could not issue diplomas valid in the United States after 2020. The Cantonal Court of Tuzla affirmed the indictment against him in July 2023, finding that there was reasonable suspicion he had committed fraud and abuse of authority.