Perdoceo Education Corporation 2026 Q2 Earnings Call

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our second quarter 2026 earnings call. With me on the call today is Todd Nelson, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Ashish Ghia, Chief Financial Officer. This conference call is being webcast live within the investor relations section of the company's website at perdoceoed.com. A webcast replay will also be available on our site for 90 days following the call, and you can always contact the Alpha IR Group for investor relations support. Let me remind you that this afternoon's earnings release and remarks made today include forward-looking statements as defined in Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended.

These statements are based on assumptions made by, and information currently available to, Perdoceo Education Corporation and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual future results, performance, business prospects, and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by these forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those factors identified in Perdoceo's most recent annual report on Form 10-K in subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as expressly required by the securities laws, the company undertakes no obligation to update those factors or any forward-looking statements to reflect future events, developments, or changed circumstances, or for any other reason. In addition, today's remarks refer to non-GAAP financial measures, which are intended to supplement, but not substitute for, the most directly comparable GAAP measures.

The earnings release that accompanies today's call contains financial and other quantitative information to be discussed today, as well as the reconciliation of the GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures and is available within the investor relations page of the company's website. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Todd Nelson.

Todd? Thank you, Nick. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our second quarter 2026 earnings call.

Our portfolio of academic institutions performed well during the second quarter and remain committed to supporting adult learners by offering flexible education pathways that help working professionals grow in their careers, while also training and educating the healthcare workforce to provide quality medical care across communities nationwide. CTU and AIUS continue to serve a broad population of career-minded students through fully online and hybrid programs, while the University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences prepares graduate-level health science professionals in physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech language pathology, and nursing. I'll start by discussing some key highlights for the second quarter. Ashish will then provide more details on our operating and financial performance and discuss the third quarter and full year 2026 outlook.

As always, I want to thank our faculty, student support staff, and employees across the organization for their continued dedication and hard work in serving and educating our students. Operating performance at our academic institutions has been ahead of our expectation for the first half of 2026, with year-to-date operating income growth of 14.4%, supported by revenue growth of 3%. Net income for the second quarter was $48 million, or $0.75 per diluted share, as compared to $41 million or $0.62 per diluted share in the prior year quarter. Our academic institutions continue to operate with disciplined expense management while making purposeful investments across academics, program development, technology, and student support teams. With that context, here are a few additional highlights for the quarter. Total student enrollments grew just under 1% at the end of the second quarter.

Excluding Trident University, which is a part of AIUS, all of our academic institutions experienced enrollment growth supported by strong retention trends and healthy level of prospective students looking to pursue a degree at one of our academic institutions. Ashish will explain these enrollment trends in more detail. The shift from traditional internet search engines to LLM-based AI-powered search is changing how prospective students research and evaluate their education options. However, our analysis indicates a majority of our prospective student inquiries come from channels that are not directly impacted by this trend. In response to increased prospective student interest, we are growing our investment in those channels not impacted, while selectively leveraging generative artificial intelligence to identify and engage prospective students who we believe are more likely to succeed at one of our academic institutions.

As a result, while we are seeing some shift in prospective student behavior as AI-powered search grows, the overall impact on enrollment has been modest thus far. We remain focused on keeping our programs visible and accessible as search behavior evolves, actively updating our content so that it is readily accessible to and optimized by AI-powered search, while investing in our brands to strengthen the visibility of our academic institutions as these AI engines continue to shape discovery. Through our corporate student programs, we provide accredited degree programs to employees of our partner organizations, supporting their career advancements while helping corporate partners strengthen employee development and retention. Total enrollment for the corporate student programs at CTU and AIUS continue to grow, and this remains a priority as we continue to make strategic investments in technology and personnel to support future enrollment growth.

Our capital allocation decisions during the year highlight, amongst other priorities, our continued commitment to returning capital to shareholders. In line with our broader strategy, on August 6, the board authorized an increase to our quarterly dividend from $0.15 to $0.17 per share, the third such increase since the dividend payments were initiated in 2023. This reflects our commitment to making dividends a growing and integral part of our capital allocation strategy. Before I pass the call to Ashish, I'd like to take a moment to highlight the successful acquisition and integration of the University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences. We completed the acquisition in 2024 and currently have approximately 4,200 students enrolled at the university. Since the acquisition, St. Augustine has expanded several of its program offerings as it introduced new modalities at existing campus locations, giving prospective students greater flexibility in how they pursue a degree.

We believe the university is on track to have a strong revenue and adjusted operating income for the full year of 2026, with further growth expected in 2027. Our success with acquisitions over the past few years, we believe, reflects a capability we have now built the ability to extend the depth and breadth of our program offerings by acquiring and integrating academic institutions while maintaining their value proposition and creating long-term value. Consistent with our capital allocation strategy, we are evaluating accretive acquisition opportunities to complement our organic growth. We are very encouraged with our ongoing dialogue with a range of academic institutions across our various programmatic areas of focus, including health sciences. With proven integration capabilities, a strong balance sheet, and disciplined approach to capital allocation, we will act when the right opportunity emerges.

In summary, with our academic institutions' solid operating results this quarter, we remain optimistic as we move through the remainder of 2026. Ashish will now provide more details on the financial results, our 2026 outlook, and total student enrollment trends.

Ashish? Thank you, Todd. I will review the second quarter results.

Then discuss our balance sheet as well as the third quarter and full-year 2026 outlook before handing the call back to Todd for his closing remarks. Please note all comparisons discussed on this call are versus the comparative prior year period, unless otherwise stated. In addition, total student enrollment numbers and any referenced student enrollment trends discussed during this call do not include learners pursuing non-degree seeking and professional development programs and degree-seeking non-Title IV self-paced programs at our universities. Turning to the second quarter, net income for the quarter was $48 million, or $0.75 per diluted share as compared to $41 million or $0.62 per diluted share. Second quarter revenue increased 1.8% to $213.4 million with year-to-date revenue now up 3% as compared to the prior year to date.