American Public Education Inc. 4Q 2025 Earnings Call - Revenue and Margins Improved Despite APUS TA Freeze, Institutional Combination and Campus Expansion Set 2026 Up

Tiffany, Conference Operator: Thank you for standing by. My name is Tiffany, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the APEI 4Q 2025 earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker’s remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during that time, simply press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Shannon Devine, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI)1: Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to American Public Education’s conference call to discuss fourth quarter and full year 2025 results. Joining me on the call today are Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, Edward Codispoti, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Gary Janson, Chief Strategy and Growth Officer. Materials for today’s call are available in the Events and Presentations section of APEI’s website. Statements made during this call and in the accompanying presentation regarding APEI and its subsidiaries that are not historical facts may be forward-looking statements that are based on management’s current expectations, assumptions, estimates, and projections.

Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements, such as those identified in our Form 10-K under the heading Risk Factors, including those related to potential impacts from government shutdowns or changing federal or state government policies, practices, and laws, including impacts on revenues or the timing of receivables. Forward-looking statements may sometimes be identified by words like anticipate, believe, seek, could, estimate, expect, can, may, plan, potentially, project, should, will, would, and similar or opposite words.

Forward-looking statements include, without limitation, statements regarding expectations for registration and enrollments, revenue, earnings, and adjusted EBITDA and other earnings guidance, our foundation for growth, the planned combination of our institutions, government, governmental and regulatory actions, their impacts and our response to those actions, changing market demands and our ability to satisfy such demands and other company initiatives. The call and the presentation contain references to non-GAAP financial information. A reconciliation between each non-GAAP financial measure we use and the most directly comparable GAAP measure is located in the appendix in today’s presentation and in the earnings release. Management believes that the presentation of non-GAAP financial information provides useful supplemental information to investors regarding its results of operations and should only be considered in addition to and not as a substitute for or superior to any measure of financial performance prepared in accordance with GAAP.

I’d now like to turn the call over to APEI’s President and CEO, Angela Selden. Angie, please go ahead.

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Thank you, Shannon, and good afternoon, and thank you all for joining today’s call about American Public Education’s fourth quarter and full year 2025 performance. At the beginning of 2025, we set out to simplify and strengthen APEI. Today, I am very pleased to share the following results and highlight how our 2025 achievements create a strong jumping-off point for our four-year growth strategy, which we introduced at our recent Investor Day. First, APUS delivered full year 2025 revenue growth, even with the fourth quarter registration interruption. APUS’s student base, including veterans, extended military families, and military service members across all branches, demonstrated demand in line with our expectations. The underlying business is strong, and the numbers reflect that. Second, our nursing and healthcare institutions both had outstanding years. Rasmussen’s full year 2025 revenue increased 14%, and Hondros’ full year revenue increased 11%.

Third, APEI’s full year consolidated revenue grew 4% to $649 million versus 2024. That growth was achieved even with the mid-year sale of Graduate School USA, the announced closure of two Rasmussen campuses in Wisconsin, and a registration interruption at APUS in the fourth quarter that affected TA registrations for 43 days. For context, by excluding Graduate School USA from both 2024 and 2025, consolidated revenue would have increased about 7% when compared to the prior year. These results reinforce the strength of our diversified portfolio. Fourth, APEI’s full year adjusted EBITDA reached $85.7 million, up 19% as compared to 2024, beating not only our revised guidance, but also beating the top end of our initial 2025 guidance.

We trimmed costs across the enterprise, specifically at APUS and in APEI Technology, and these savings have reset the cost baseline for 2026 and beyond. Finally, we did what we said we were going to do. At the beginning of 2025, we committed to redeeming our preferred equity, selling some corporate buildings, and having the Department of Education lift the $25 million letter of credit and lift the 6 years of growth restrictions that prevented new campuses and new programs at Rasmussen before APEI’s acquisition. Achievement of these commitments has simplified and strengthened our business for 2026 and beyond, and we delivered on these commitments while simultaneously growing enrollment, expanding margins, and strengthening our balance sheet. Our teams demonstrated resilience, tenacity, and confidence in overcoming obstacles and delivering remarkable results. Now let’s turn our attention to APEI’s fourth quarter 2025 consolidated revenue.

We delivered $158.3 million, and we exceeded our most recently stated guidance across all key financial metrics, including revenue, net income available to common stockholders, EPS, and adjusted EBITDA. Our nursing and healthcare institutions demonstrated significant strength during 4Q25. Rasmussen grew 16% and enrollments increased 9% year-over-year to approximately 15,900 students, representing our sixth consecutive quarter of year-over-year enrollment growth. What’s particularly exciting is that our Fill the Back Row strategy of maximizing capacity utilization is working. Our nursing programs continue to show broad-based strength with particularly strong performance in our nursing programs. Our allied health programs, including surgical tech and radiological tech, are also performing well, though most are at capacity, which creates opportunities for our planned expansion initiatives.

By maximizing capacity utilization at our existing campuses, we are driving significant operating leverage and demonstrating impressive margin expansion. Hondros continues to deliver strong results with fourth quarter 2025 enrollment of 4,000 students, a nearly 10% year-over-year revenue increase and 9% year-over-year enrollment growth. This performance demonstrates the durability of demand for pre-licensure nursing and our ability to effectively reach students in our local markets. In fourth quarter 2025, APUS successfully navigated the 43-day federal government shutdown, which created an active duty military student registration interruption. As we have previously shared, it has been 12 years since the Defense Appropriations Bill, which funds military tuition assistance, or TA, had remained unsigned by October 1, the beginning of the federal government’s fiscal year.

With the Defense Appropriations Bill still unsigned by our November start, all four major military branches began utilizing their portion of the $100 million of tuition assistance funds authorized under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to enable active duty military students to continue their education. Importantly, once the government reopened in December, we saw a 41% increase in TA registrations as compared to December 2024, which demonstrates resiliency and demand for education from our military students, even in the face of funding disruptions. Because most APUS students take one course at a time, this simply delayed their progression rather than stopping their progression entirely. Additionally, an important bright spot in APUS’s fourth quarter performance was the continued momentum in both our veteran and military families channels, where we continued to see high teen registration growth. Now let’s turn our attention towards 2026.

I wanna highlight two key first half 2026 developments. First, we are making important progress on our institutional combination. In late February, the Higher Learning Commission approved a key step in our institutional combination, and on March second, we combined the three institutions’ legal entities into one. Now, we are working with the Department of Education and HLC to complete the remaining steps to combine our three institutions into one system with one OPE ID. We are targeting an expected effective date in the beginning of the third quarter of 2026 to become effective for the 2026 financial aid award year. In addition, today we are formally announcing that we have two reporting segments, APU Global and RU Health Plus, for fiscal year 2026 and beyond. Second, we are launching two campuses in 2026.

One Rasmussen campus in Orlando, which is already enrolling students for Q2 2026, and one Hondros campus in Detroit, which we anticipate will be prepared to enroll students in Q1 2027. Both represent important expansion into markets that have already demonstrated strong demand for our programs. In our next earnings call, we’ll provide more details and progress on these first half 2026 developments. As we look to 2026 overall, we believe we have clear visibility into our revenue growth and our margin expansion drivers, including continued enrollment momentum at Rasmussen and Hondros to build on 2025’s strong performance and our Fill the Back Row and Leverage the Ladder initiatives. We will anticipate revenue synergies we gain from the Rasmussen and Hondros integration process. We plan for growth acceleration at APUS as government funding normalizes and marketing flexibility increases for military and veteran enrollment post-combination.

We believe we’ll anticipate and experience improved profitability and cash flow due to the new re-refinancing of our debt and the cost savings associated with that. In view of these and other factors, we are providing full year 2026 guidance as follows. APEI 2026 revenue will be between $685 million-$695 million. Adjusted EBITDA will be between $91.5 million-$100.5 million. As for Q1 2026 guidance, because of where we are in the quarter this year, the timing of this earnings call gives us full visibility to all university enrollments. As a result, APEI revenue will be between $173 million-$175 million.

Please note that the 1Q25 comparable period includes $3.7 million of graduate school revenue, which obviously is not included in 2026 due to its sale in July 2025. Adjusted EBITDA will be $25.5 million-$27.0 million. Ed Codispoti, our CFO, will provide more details in his remarks, including Q1 enrollment and registration results, the refinancing of our debt, and authorization of a new $50 million share repurchase program. We are very clear about what the next four years require. It is all about execution. The foundation is built, our business is simplified, and we are operating with a strong balance sheet. We’ve developed a strategy, we are strengthening the team, and now it’s about doing what we say we’re going to do quarter after quarter.

That’s what you experienced in 2025, and that’s what you should expect going forward. With that, I’ll turn the call over to Ed to discuss our financial results and 2026 guidance in detail.

Edward Codispoti, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Thank you, Angie. I’ll begin with our fourth quarter results, then review our full year 2025 performance, and conclude with our outlook for the first quarter and full year 2026. Total revenue in the fourth quarter was $158.3 million, down $5.8 million or 3.5% compared to $164.1 million in the prior year period. Despite the federal government shutdown impact at APUS, we exceeded our most recently stated guidance. Now, let’s break down revenue by segment. At APUS, fourth quarter revenue was $71 million, down 13.8% compared to $82.4 million in the prior year period. The decline reflects the impact of the federal government shutdown during October and November.

Net course registrations for the quarter were 82,200, down 15.3% year-over-year. However, the underlying business fundamentals remain strong. At Rasmussen, fourth quarter revenue was $66.6 million, up 15.9% compared to $57.5 million in the fourth quarter of the prior year. This strong performance was driven by 8.9% enrollment growth, bringing total students to 15,900. At Hondros College of Nursing, fourth quarter revenue was $20.7 million, up 9.2% compared to $18.9 million in the prior year period. This reflects continued enrollment momentum with 4,000 students, an increase of 8.1% year-over-year. Now, turning to profitability for the quarter.

Fourth quarter net income available to common stockholders was $12.6 million or $0.67 per diluted share compared to $11.5 million or $0.63 per diluted share in the prior year period. This represents a 9.6% increase in net income and a 6.3% increase in diluted EPS. Fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA was $28.7 million compared to $31.4 million in the prior year period, representing an adjusted EBITDA margin of 18.1%. While down year-over-year due to the APUS shutdown impact, we exceeded our most recently stated guidance, demonstrating strong operational execution. Turning now to our full year results.

For full year 2025, consolidated revenue was $648.9 million. Representing 3.9% growth over 2024 despite the federal government shutdown impact and the sale of Graduate School USA. Excluding Graduate School USA, if you exclude that revenue from both periods, revenue growth would have been approximately 7%. APUS revenue was $319.8 million, up 0.9% year-over-year. Rasmussen revenue was $246.2 million, up 13.9% year-over-year. This growth was driven by sustained enrollment momentum and our successful Fill the Back Row strategy. Importantly, Rasmussen delivered segment income from operations of $4.1 million compared to a loss of $21.8 million in 2024.

This represents a swing of nearly $26 million, demonstrating strong enrollment growth and significant margin expansion. Hondros revenue was $75 million, up 11.4% year over year, reflecting continued demand for pre-licensure nursing education. Full year adjusted EBITDA reached $85.7 million, an increase of $13.4 million or 18.6% compared to $72.3 million in 2024. This represents a significant accomplishment and demonstrates the strength of our business model as our adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 164 basis points to 13.2% in 2025. Net income available to common stockholders for the full year was $25.3 million or $1.36 per diluted share compared to $10.1 million or $0.55 per diluted share in 2024.

This 152% increase in net income reflects our operational execution, the absence of preferred dividends following our second quarter redemption, and margin expansion. We also ended 2025 with a very strong balance sheet. As of December 31, 2025, our cash equivalents, and restricted cash totaled $176.5 million compared to $158.9 million at December 31, 2024, an increase of $17.6 million or 11%. Total debt was $96.4 million, and our net cash position was $80.1 million. We further strengthened our balance sheet and liquidity position last Monday, March 9, when we refinanced our debt.

Through the refinancing, we reduced our borrowing rate by approximately 375 basis points at current leverage levels and lowered our principal balance from $96.4 million to $90 million. The lower borrowing rate combined with the reduction in principal is expected to generate $3.7 million in annual interest expense savings, excluding the amortization of debt issuance costs. For modeling purposes, you should expect our interest income to be roughly equivalent to our interest expense in 2026, given our strong cash balances and improved borrowing rate. Also, we will recognize a non-cash write-off of approximately $1.6 million related to deferred financing costs associated with our previous loan. Our strong balance sheet and cash generation provide us with significant financial flexibility for growth investments.

This liquidity position was also a key factor in our ability to navigate the government shutdown without operational disruption. In addition, this week our board of directors authorized a $50 million share repurchase program. We expect the program to be used primarily to offset dilution from share-based compensation while also providing flexibility to opportunistically repurchase shares depending on market conditions and other factors. The authorization reflects the board’s confidence in the company’s long-term strategy, our strong cash flow profile, and our commitment to disciplined capital allocation. Repurchases may be made from time to time through open market transactions or other permitted methods, and the timing and amount of any repurchases will depend on market conditions, share price, and alternative uses of capital. I’ll now discuss our guidance for first quarter and full year 2026.

Our guidance for first quarter 2026 is as follows. Revenue between $173 million and $175 million. Net income available to common stockholders between $11.1 million and $12.2 million. Adjusted EBITDA between $25.5 million and $27 million. Diluted earnings per share between $0.58 per share and $0.64 per share. When considering this guidance, keep in mind that our results are subject to seasonality. The first quarter is typically our second strongest quarter of the year. For full year 2026, our guidance is as follows. Revenue between $685 million and $695 million. Net income available to common stockholders between $41.3 million and $47.6 million.

Adjusted EBITDA between $91.5 million and $100.5 million. Diluted earnings per share between $2.15 per share and $2.47 per share, and CapEx between $28 million and $32 million. In summary, 2025 was an excellent year for APEI. We exceeded our guidance despite external challenges, strengthened our balance sheet, and positioned the company for accelerated growth in 2026. Our 2026 guidance reflects continued enrollment growth, improving margins, and the benefits of our strengthened balance sheet, and we believe we are well positioned to achieve these targets. With that, I’ll turn it back to Angie for closing remarks.

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Thank you, Ed. In closing, we have spent the past year setting ambitious, yet achievable financial and operating goals. Our RU Health Plus segment, comprised of Rasmussen University and Hondros College of Nursing, are delivering consistent positive enrollment growth and improving profitability. Our APU Global segment, with the exception of temporary enrollment disruptions from the federal government shutdown, continues to deliver growth and strong margins. I want to reinforce the multi-year growth framework we outlined at our November 2025 Investor Day. At that event, we introduced our vision through 2029 with five key value creation initiatives at APU Global and four at our RU Health Plus healthcare division. Those growth drivers remain fully intact. These value creation initiatives build on each other and create a foundation for sustained growth.

Our multi-year growth framework projected organic revenue of $890 million-$925 million by 2029, representing an 8%-9% revenue CAGR, with adjusted EBITDA margins at 20%-21%. With strategic investments in new campuses and potential tuck-in acquisitions, we see a potential path to $1 billion in revenue by 2029. Our APEI organization is purpose-built to deliver affordable and accessible education opportunities in fields which are in high demand and resilient to disruption. Nursing education prioritizes in-person bedside care, and our military service members continue to be critical to U.S. defense strategies, especially in these heightened times in the Middle East and Latin America. We believe that careers that require judgment are AI resilient and will continue to need humans to operate.

Our platform and sector tailwinds position APEI to accelerate growth and bring more educational opportunities to a greater audience. We are as optimistic today as we have ever been about the long-term potential of our company. Before we move to questions, I want to acknowledge the valuable feedback we’ve received from many of you. In our ongoing effort to continue to be more transparent with our investor community, we are committed to providing you with clear insights into our performance, our strategic initiatives, and the long-term value creation opportunities ahead of us. Importantly, I also want to take a moment to honor Sergeant First Class Nicole M. Amor, a Rasmussen University graduate who was one of six killed in Kuwait on March first while serving her country. Nicole embodies everything we believe in at APEI, and we are deeply grateful for her service and sacrifice.

Our thoughts are with her family and fellow military service members. With that, I would now like to hand the call back to the operator to begin our question and answer session.

Tiffany, Conference Operator: At this time, if you would like to ask a question, press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, simply press star one again. We will pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Griffin Boss with B. Riley Securities. Please go ahead.

Griffin Boss, Analyst, B. Riley Securities: Hi. Good evening. Thanks for taking my questions and spectacular results amid, you know, what was a tough macro with the government shutdown in the fourth quarter. I just wanna start off on the CapEx cadence and step up given these new campus openings. Is that gonna be linear throughout the year, or is that gonna ramp towards the back half of the year as that Hondros campus gets ready to start enrollments?

Edward Codispoti, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Yeah, Griffin, we expect on the campus openings that most of the CapEx related to the new campuses would be in the fourth quarter, maybe a little bit in the third quarter. Good question. It’ll be mostly in the second half of the year.

Griffin Boss, Analyst, B. Riley Securities: Okay, great. Thanks, Ed, for that. Then, just on that note too, can you just remind us? I know you spoke about it on your Investor Day, but it would be helpful, I think, here to remind all of us, about the economics of these new campuses. You know, what’s the expected revenue per new campus once it’s ramped, margin expectations and when you expect to be cash flow break even? I apologize, I don’t know if there’s background noise on my end. I’m hearing a little bit of that. I could repeat the question if you could-

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): You’re coming in sounding clear. You’re good. Yeah.

Edward Codispoti, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): We don’t hear that. I think as we said, our campuses are relatively CapEx light. We expect them to cost about $3.5 million to open, take about 8-18 months before we turn cash flow positive.

Gary Janson, Chief Strategy and Growth Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): I think the economics we said at scale, we would expect the campus to do about $12 million in revenue and have about a 35% EBITDA margin.

Griffin Boss, Analyst, B. Riley Securities: Okay, great. Yeah, that’s super helpful.

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Griffin.

Griffin Boss, Analyst, B. Riley Securities: Yeah.

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Oh, Griffin, I was just gonna say, we’re still on a pace to open two campuses per year. That’s the current plan that was baked into the four-year plan we shared at Investor Day.

Griffin Boss, Analyst, B. Riley Securities: Right. Yes. I guess before I get to my last one, just to follow up on that. We could expect kind of, you know, a heightened level of CapEx, at least above the 25 levels going forward beyond 26. I know you’re not guiding to that, but is that a reasonable expectation?

Gary Janson, Chief Strategy and Growth Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Yeah. I think what Ed guided to in his comments for the full year this year is kind of our standard number we would use, which includes about $7 million for new campus openings. Is that fair?

Edward Codispoti, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Yeah, that’s fair. Yep.

Griffin Boss, Analyst, B. Riley Securities: Okay, excellent.

Edward Codispoti, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): The range that we expect between 28 and 32, so 7 of that would be for campus openings.

Griffin Boss, Analyst, B. Riley Securities: Sure. Okay. Makes sense. And then just last one before I hand it off, hop back in the queue. I understand going forward there’s just gonna be two operating segments. But is there any chance you could break out kind of the expectation for the first quarter for Rasmussen and Hondros for us before we start to you know model just kind of two divisions going forward?

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): We are moving towards this two-segment combination, and as a result, we won’t be breaking it out for the investor community going forward, no.

Griffin Boss, Analyst, B. Riley Securities: Okay. Fair, fair enough. Thank you, Angie.

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Okay.

Griffin Boss, Analyst, B. Riley Securities: Thank you, Ed. Appreciate it.

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Of course. Yeah. Thanks for the questions, Griffin. Thank you very much.

Tiffany, Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Luke Horton with Northland Securities. Please go ahead.

Luke Horton, Analyst, Northland Securities: Yeah. Hey, guys. Congratulations on a very nice quarter here. I guess kind of wanna dive into the marketing strategy and how this sort of shifts after the institution combination kind of takes effect. Could you just kinda talk through kind of marketing strategy there?

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Yeah. Great question, Luke. Well, let me start by saying Rasmussen’s brand and Hondros’ brand will continue to be present in their local markets. The marketing strategy will continue to attract students to those campuses with those brand names. What we are doing is we are bringing the better practices from each of the three education units to each other. The best practices from APUS is online to Rasmussen online. The best practices from Rasmussen campuses to Hondros and vice versa. We are continuing to optimize our marketing spend. The difference between what we do digitally, primarily for our online students and what we do in a more scrappy, on the ground fashion for our campuses. We will continue to be enrolling students in each of those brands for 2026.

Luke Horton, Analyst, Northland Securities: Okay, great. That’s helpful. Then, lastly, just on the course registrations at APUS, I think you said it was up, like, 41% in the month of December, year-over-year. I guess, when the government was shut down and the funding was paused, was there like a wait list where students could, like, sign up for course registration once funding was returned? Or I guess, what was kind of the leader of the big bump in course registrations for December?

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Yeah, great question. I’ll have Gary answer that question. Go ahead.

Gary Janson, Chief Strategy and Growth Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Yeah. I was gonna say, I think we were pleasantly surprised. We didn’t know how much we would bounce back or whether it would just be a permanent kind of loss, but we saw that significant bounce back from the military students. I think that indicates that there was good demand, and without the ability to have the funding in place, they were just sitting on the sidelines. It was a combination of new students and continuing students came back, which, you know, we didn’t have a good indicator there. That was a nice surprise for us in December, and obviously that helped to start the year off as well.

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Keep in mind that those 20,600 TA registrations in October and November ended up getting dropped. Those were students that were already enrolled in class, and we had to drop them for non-payment. When you say, "Was there a wait list?" or, you know, what have you, they had already intended to take their courses in October and November. When funding became available again, they jumped right back in, and we were really pleased that December, which is of the quarter, the lighter of the enrollment months, just because it’s the holidays, et cetera, didn’t seem to slow them down in wanting to jump back in and take their courses.

Luke Horton, Analyst, Northland Securities: Okay. Got it. That’s very helpful. That’s it for me. Congratulations on the quarter.

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Thank you so much, Luke.

Gary Janson, Chief Strategy and Growth Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Thank you, Luke.

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Thank you very much.

Tiffany, Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Eric Martinuzzi with Lake Street Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Eric Martinuzzi, Analyst, Lake Street Capital Markets: Yeah. I also wanted to dive in on the enrollments at APUS, just but more focused on the non-TA side. Seeing Q4 up 11% for the non-TA, I was just curious. You know, could you remind me, how did that compare with the first nine months of the year? Was that an acceleration?

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Great question. I’m gonna, Eric, turn that over to Gary for him to answer.

Gary Janson, Chief Strategy and Growth Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Yeah, I think we are very pleased with the non-military segments and, you know, we saw, I think Angie mentioned it, that we saw high teens in both the veterans and extended family markets. Our other category was a little bit lighter, but the combination of the non-military active duty segment was about 11% growth combined.

Eric Martinuzzi, Analyst, Lake Street Capital Markets: Okay. Then for the first quarter, that 4% year-on-year that you saw, was that, did you see that sustain in the first quarter?

Gary Janson, Chief Strategy and Growth Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): We did.

Eric Martinuzzi, Analyst, Lake Street Capital Markets: of registration?

Gary Janson, Chief Strategy and Growth Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Yeah, we’ll probably give more color on that in our next call. Yes, we did see that same trend continue, which we’re very pleased with. You know, we think there’s good momentum there, which is, you know, what we were hoping to see and certainly very pleased with the outcomes. The teams worked really hard to build the extended families and the veterans as they take more courses on average and have a little bit higher tuition rates. It’s pacing out nicely, despite, you know, a little bit of a softness in the active duty due to a partial shutdown in Q1.

Eric Martinuzzi, Analyst, Lake Street Capital Markets: Got it. My last question has to do with the use of cash, the priorities here. You’ve obviously come out with a new repurchase plan, this $50 million. You talked about sort of absorbing stock-based comp, the dilution from that. Just, you know, what is the priority? Is it, you know, anything beyond that, we’re gonna focus on debt pay down, or is the current stock price appetizing to you guys? What’s the focus?

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Yeah, great question, Eric. I’m gonna turn it over to Ed for him to answer that.

Edward Codispoti, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Sure. Yeah, look, from a priority standpoint, we’re always going to focus initially on organic growth. That’s gonna be our number one priority. We wanna do so while we maintain a conservative balance sheet. M&A is something that we’ll continue to look at. It has to be opportunistic in nature. There are reasons why we might want to expand geographically, a deal that might make sense in terms of its footprint. When all of that is said and done, we turn to the return of capital to shareholders. In the case of this $50 million authorization, as you said, we’re very focused on the dilution of stock-based comp and mitigating that.

In the event that there are market events or changes in stock price that would make sense for us to be opportunistic to repurchase more, then we’d execute from that perspective as well.

Eric Martinuzzi, Analyst, Lake Street Capital Markets: Got it. Thanks for taking my questions.

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Thank you.

Tiffany, Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Jasper Bibb with Truist Securities. Please go ahead.

Jasper Bibb, Analyst, Truist Securities: Hey, good afternoon, everyone. Maybe following up on an earlier question, I wanted to ask what your 2026 guidance envisions as far as on-ground healthcare growth or maybe any additional detail on what you’re seeing in healthcare student demand this year would be great.

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Hi, Jasper. Thanks very much for the question. I’ll start by saying we continue to see strong interest in our campus programs and specifically our nursing, pre-licensure nursing campus programs. I’ll turn it over to Gary, and he’ll give you a little bit more detail on that.

Gary Janson, Chief Strategy and Growth Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Yeah, I think we said we would see somewhat linear growth in relationship to our longer term strategic plan. I think we’re targeting, call it high single digit growth in our healthcare platform entirely. We intend to grow, not obviously, but we intend to grow our campuses at a slightly faster rate than the online and the healthcare division. That’s our target rate. Obviously getting APUS to be growing, you know, at a similar rate, maybe lower, slightly lower than the healthcare platform.

Jasper Bibb, Analyst, Truist Securities: Thanks for that. It’s probably too early to say, but could you frame for us on whether the Iran war is having an impact on the behavior of your active duty students at APUS or maybe historically how that part of your student population behaves when military activity picks up?

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Great question, Jasper. So, you know, presently we don’t know what the exact troop count is, but primarily those being deployed are in the Navy, the Air Force, cyber, and some regional-based personnel. You know, those our largest enrollment population is the Army, and the boots on the ground deployment hasn’t happened yet. With the March start, which was a really important you know, checkpoint for us to see what kind of impact, if any, we would experience, we had really no difference in our start rate for March, even with the Middle East war. And, you know, we don’t anticipate a significantly positive or a significantly negative registration impact just based on what we’ve seen over the years with military deployments.

You know, sometimes people suspend their education because they’re deployed and aren’t sure they will have access to a computer. We see others ramping up their education because they are deployed but have free time and connection to the internet and a computer, and so they decide to take courses. It all kind of balances out in the end. Right now we don’t think there will be any impact in a meaningful way at APUS on registrations in, you know, in 2026. We’ll certainly keep you posted as we learn more.

Gary Janson, Chief Strategy and Growth Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Got it. Thanks for taking the question.

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Thank you.

Tiffany, Conference Operator: Again, if you would like to ask a question, press star one on your telephone keypad. Your next question comes from the line of Raj Sharma with Texas Capital Bank. Please go ahead.

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI)0: Hi. Thank you for taking my questions, Raj. You know, great results and solid guidance. This has been a pleasure. I had a couple of questions. How do you specifically plan to fill the back row? I know you had talked at the Analyst Day. Can you enumerate certain specific tactics?

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Yeah. Great question, Raj, and thanks for the compliments. We are really honing in on our marketing strategies that are attracting the students to the programs that have not just the biggest supply-demand gap, but also the biggest employment demands in the local markets. We are refining our marketing approaches, and in some markets, we are actually investing more marketing dollars than we had originally planned because we’re seeing great yield and great results. You know, we’re looking at being thoughtful but also being aggressive about how we take you know EBITDA outperformance at Rasmussen in particular, and investing some of those dollars into the marketing so we can continue to grow and Fill the Back Row.

We are just gonna continue to do what we did in 2025, which delivered great results. I’ll turn it over to Gary for more commentary.

Gary Janson, Chief Strategy and Growth Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): I’d also say that we, you know, plan to at campuses cross-pollinate programs. We have a nice portfolio. Not every campus has the same programs in nursing and allied health. Part of the strategy, for example, in the new campus in Orlando, we’re offering an LPN program in that market that we didn’t have before, and that becomes another opportunity for us as we look at campuses. It’s a combination of just continuing the marketing, but also creating, you know, using the campuses and expanding programs that they may not have in their portfolio. We’ve got a very detailed plan campus by campus on what programs we plan to roll out over the next four years.

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI)0: Got it. Thank you. That’s very helpful. And then, you know, you’ve guided the fiscal 2026 to top-line revenue of little over 6%. I think in your remarks, you just said, is it right to assume that nursing in Hondros are gonna be high single digits% then through the year, grow over and APUS.

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cut you off. Sorry. Finish your question, Raj. Sorry.

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI)0: No, just that you break out the nursing and the APUS. Is it

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Yeah.

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI)0: Is it that high single digit and low single digit?

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Yeah, I do wanna just first remind all who are looking at comparative year-over-year results that we do have Graduate School revenue in the first half of 2025. We put on the Q1 guidance page, you know, the fact that the Q1 revenue includes $3.7 million of Graduate School. I can see now we did not put the total Graduate School revenue to be able to deduct from, you know, the 2025 as a year-over-year comparison. That if you were to do an apples to apples comparison, our growth rate is approaching 8% at the midpoint.

Certainly, when you get to full year, you will also, you know, have the opportunity to see that we would likely be able to recover the enrollment that we had to forego in October and November as a result of the government shutdown. We think that there are some puts and takes in those numbers that would signal that the midpoint of our full year is probably closer to 8%, with APUS, as you were calling out, in the mid-single digits and our healthcare schools in the high single to low double digits. Yes.

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI)0: Thank you. That’s really helpful. Then just following on that last question, you know, with the increase in the revenues at Rasmussen and Hondros, you’ve achieved incremental margins, right? I think last year, fiscal 2024 and 2025 was greater than 50%, and this year it seems to be implied with fiscal 2026 guidance. The incremental profit margins are implied at 25%. Do you expect healthier incremental profit margins than the guidance would indicate?

Gary Janson, Chief Strategy and Growth Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Obviously, you know, this is Gary. I think we are obviously tracking to that. We are making some strategic investments to make sure that we can hit those numbers. Angie mentioned in some marketing. Last year, we saw, I think it was 75% flow-through margins at Rasmussen is what we ended up doing full year. We’ll continue to monitor that, but it’ll progress throughout the year. I think we’re right now making sure that we stay focused on a healthy top-line growth to fill the back row, and that may mean some additional S&M spend and some faculty ahead of that. Don’t forget the campuses as we go, that they will suppress the margins a bit, not as much in 2026, but in out years.

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): The new campuses.

Gary Janson, Chief Strategy and Growth Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): New campuses, sorry.

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Which we didn’t have any campuses.

Gary Janson, Chief Strategy and Growth Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Um-

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Yeah, in the Rasmussen numbers in 2025.

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI)0: Great. I’ll take it offline. Thank you again. Fantastic results and great guidance, and thank you for taking my questions.

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Thank you, Raj.

Gary Janson, Chief Strategy and Growth Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Thanks, Raj.

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Thank you very much.

Tiffany, Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Stephen Sheldon with William Blair. Please go ahead.

Matt Filek, Analyst, William Blair: Hey, everyone. You have Matt Filek on for Stephen Sheldon. Congrats on a strong finish to the year, and thank you for taking my questions. Wanted to start with a quick follow-up on Fill the Back Row. I think you have previously said that nursing campus utilization is currently around 60%, but your target is closer to 90%. I was wondering if you can share anything on the rough timeline and cadence to getting to that 90% target level across your nursing campuses.

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Yeah. Hi, Matt. Great question. It’s our favorite topic. We signaled when we did Investor Day that we would be approaching that 90% when we get to year four. We also signaled that we expect a rather smooth progression over the four years. We think that that’s just going to be, you know, basically consuming capacity and adding students on a rather smooth trajectory over the next four years.

Matt Filek, Analyst, William Blair: Got it. Yep, that makes a ton of sense. Just had a quick one on teacher capacity. How do you feel about your current teacher capacity across educational units? Are there any areas where you may be slightly over or understaffed?

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Great question. I think if you remember at the Investor Day meeting, we talked a little bit about making sure we’re not just enrolling students, but we’re also managing those constraints, right? Making sure that we have all the necessary resources in place, which includes faculty, availability of clinicals, etc., right? The good news is, since we are, you know, far past COVID now, the availability of faculty has really not been a constraint in our markets of late, which is really good news because that is certainly one of the things that makes it difficult for you to, you know, enroll at the paces that we were enrolling at. We don’t have any campuses right now where we have a faculty shortage.

In fact, we have all of our dean positions filled at all of our Rasmussen and Hondros campuses. We really feel like we’re in very strong shape from a talent and faculty perspective going into 2026.

Matt Filek, Analyst, William Blair: That’s great to hear. Thank you, Angie and team. I’ll jump back in the queue. Appreciate the time.

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Thanks, Matt. Thank you.

Tiffany, Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Alex Paris with Barrington Research. Please go ahead.

Alex Paris, Analyst, Barrington Research: Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my questions, and I’ll add my congratulations on the strong finish to the year. A couple of questions here on the government shutdown impact on revenue in the fourth quarter. I think you had sort of guided that the impact would be between $20 million and $24 million. Can you quantify the actual impact on Q4?

Gary Janson, Chief Strategy and Growth Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Yeah, we think that after having gone through Q4 and, you know, December was better than we expected, we ended up probably $12 million-$15 million short from the government impact.

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Which is below what you had said, Alex. Yeah.

Gary Janson, Chief Strategy and Growth Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Yeah.

Alex Paris, Analyst, Barrington Research: Yeah. Right. 2020-2024 is what you signaled on the Q3 call, I think.

Gary Janson, Chief Strategy and Growth Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Correct.

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): That’s right.

Alex Paris, Analyst, Barrington Research: You owe that to a really strong December.

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Yes, it was certainly a strong December, both, as we mentioned in the materials that we saw, a rebound of our October and November active duty enrolling in TA classes in December. We also had stronger than we had seen in prior quarters, momentum from our veterans and our military families. That’s a segment that’s growing and gaining momentum. December was a very strong month in that quarter for us.

Alex Paris, Analyst, Barrington Research: Great. I think Gary said, in response to a previous question that there was some impact from the partial shutdown here in Q1. Can you expand on that?

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Yeah, I’ll start. For those of you who follow, and I know Alex, you do, the Department of Homeland Security is where the Coast Guard gets their TA funding. The Department of Homeland Security is still not funded. Consequently, some of the Coast Guard, which is the smallest by far of all of our branches, students are still waiting for their funding. They have been using some of the OBBBA funds to allow those students to take courses. That was one very small blip, but that’s factored into the numbers we shared with you because our Q1 for APUS is an actual, which is unusual. It’s just because of where the call landed on the calendar that we have all of Q1 for APUS in.

The second small blip was during that very small period of time, when they were not funded, the army reservists who were not deployed on military activities were also not funded. These are very small populations of students. We didn’t make a big point of calling them out, but it did have about a 1 to 1.5% impact on APUS’s potential registration actuals for Q1 had everyone been able to fully enroll.

Alex Paris, Analyst, Barrington Research: That’s very helpful. Thank you. Just to be clear on segment reporting going forward, this was the fourth quarter, so you reported APUS, RU, and Hondros.

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): That’s right.

Alex Paris, Analyst, Barrington Research: The guidance just gives APEI, APU Global and then RU Health Plus. That’s gonna be the way it’s going forward. This is the last of the three segments being reported specifically.

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): That’s right. We will, as we move into that new rhythm, we’ll certainly be showing you the comparison by combining Rasmussen and Hondros, right, into the RU Health Plus segment. That’s really the only thing that’s changing other than in the first half of 2026, as I mentioned, a few folks before you, the first half of 2026 still includes revenue from Graduate School. We’ll do a better job of explaining how to think about what that, you know, baseline comparison for 2025 should be in the first half of 2025 versus the first half of 2026 because obviously we don’t have access to that revenue any longer.

Alex Paris, Analyst, Barrington Research: Gotcha. You did say what the Q1 of 2025 revenue was for?

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): We did. Yeah.

Alex Paris, Analyst, Barrington Research: For graduate school.

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): I did. When I was looking at the PowerPoint, I realized we didn’t give that equivalent number for the full year. That was, yeah, it was $3.7 million of graduate school revenue that, you know, one would deduct from the $164.6 million in order to create more of an apples to apples comparison.

Alex Paris, Analyst, Barrington Research: Gotcha. Helpful. Lastly and related, once you do complete the combination of the institutions into one OPE ID number, will you still be reporting the two segments, though? Because that’s the way you-

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): We will. Yes.

Alex Paris, Analyst, Barrington Research: Yes.

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Yes. We absolutely will. Yes.

Alex Paris, Analyst, Barrington Research: Gotcha. Okay, that’s great. I’ll take my other questions offline. Thanks again, and congrats.

Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Education Inc. (APEI): Thank you so much, Alex. Thank you very much.

Tiffany, Conference Operator: That concludes our question and answer session. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the APEI fourth quarter 2025 earnings call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.