American Public Education, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. My name is Abby and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the APEI first quarter 2026 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 this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. Thank you, and I would now like to turn the call over to Shannon Devine, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to American Public Education's conference call to discuss first quarter 2026 results. Joining me on the call today are Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer, Edward Kodispody, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Gary Jansen, Chief Strategy and Growth Officer. Materials for today's call, which is being webcast and open to the public, are available in the events and presentations section of the APEI 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 insurgencies that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements, including risks related to potential impacts from government shutdowns or changing federal or state government policies, laws, practices, and actions, including impacts on revenue or the timing of receivables and other factors identified in our Form 10-K and Form 10-Q under the heading Risk Factors and Other SEC Filings. Forward-looking statements may sometimes be identified by words like believe, estimate, expect, may, plan, potentially, project, target, outlook, past position, on track, on pace, should, will, would, and similar or opposite words. Forward-looking statements include without limitations, statements regarding expectations for registration and enrollment, revenue, earnings, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA margin, and other earnings guidance, our foundation for growth, strategic investments, capital allocation, and M&A, opportunities, operational milestones, and timelines, a planned combination of our institutions, including the benefit and timeline thereof, government, governmental, and regulatory actions, their impact, and our response to those actions, changing market demands, and our ability to satisfy such demands and other company initiatives. As Angie will discuss, beginning with the first quarter of 2026, We are reporting under two new segment structure, Military Plus and Health Plus, following the merger of the legal entities that owned our institutions on March 2, 2026. Our Form 10-Q for the first quarter reflects this change, and all prior period comparative figures have been recast to reflect the two-segment structure, rather than the historical three-segment structure of APUS, Rasmussen University, and Honduras College of Nursing. The call and the presentation contain reference to non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin. A reconciliation between each non-GAAP financial measure we use and the most directly comparable GAAP measure is located in the appendix to today's presentation and in the earnings release. Management believes that the presentation of non-GAAP financial information provides useful supplemental information to investors Shannon Washburn- Regarding its results of operations, it should only be considered in addition to and not a substitute for or superior to any measure of financial performance prepared in accordance with gap i'd now like to turn the call over to api's President and CEO Angela selden angie please go ahead.

Angela Selden, Thank you Shannon good afternoon, and thank you very much to each of you for joining us today. I'm very pleased to share American Public Education's first quarter 2026 results. Total revenue grew 6.2% year-over-year and at the top end of our guidance range. Notably, when we exclude graduate schools 2025 revenue from the prior year period, the business that we sold in mid 2025, APEI's revenue would have grown 8.7%. which we believe is more indicative of the underlying strengths of our business. Beyond revenue, we beat guidance on adjusted EBITDA, which grew to $29.2 million, which is a 37.5% improvement over 2025. The prior year period does include 2.2 million of graduate school losses And the 2026 period includes a one-time favorable impact from the tax treatment of our stock appreciation. Ed Kodaspody, APEI CFO, will discuss the details of these matters shortly. We also beat items on net income per diluted common share, which was 94 cents or 129% over the prior year period. Given the strength of our first quarter results and our visibility into the balance of the year, today we are raising our full year 2026 guidance on both revenue and adjusted EBITDA. Importantly, we are also raising our full year EPS guidance, which at the midpoint represents an 85% increase over 2025, which is in large part a reflection of the 2025 improvements we made to the balance sheet. With those headlines, I want to provide some additional details on our two newly constituted reportable segments and an update on our institutional combination. First, as we discussed on the last earnings call on March 2nd, 2026, we combined the legal entities that owned our three institutions into one. And beginning with this quarter, we report under two newly constituted reportable segments. Military Plus, no longer called APU Global, and Health Plus, no longer called RU Health Plus. Prior period results have been recast to reflect these changes. So let's start with Health Plus. Our Health Plus institutions continue to perform very well. Health Plus revenue grew 11%, consistent with our four-year plan. This was driven by both 8% enrollment growth, which we shared on the previous earnings call, and a modest price increase, demonstrating the durability of demand for pre-licensure nursing education. Our campus expansion plans continue with our new Rasmussen Orlando campus now enrolling students and building momentum in its first full quarter of operations. Additionally, we expect to complete the relocation of the Hondros College of Nursing Cincinnati campus in the back half of 2026 to a more attractive location and our Hondros College of Nursing New Detroit campus to be ready to enroll students in the first quarter of 2027. As we turn our attention to Q2 2026 Health Plus enrollment, we experienced enrollment growth of 7.1% led by campuses and online health at high single digits. Turning to Military Plus, Military Plus delivered another quarter of revenue growth and exceptional profitability. The 4% registration growth met guidance, highlighted by the continued high teams registration growth for both military families and veterans. The segment operated at an adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 36% in the first quarter. While the EBITDA margin reflected a substantial increase above our long-range targets, a portion of this outperformance was due to shifts in marketing spend between Q1 and Q2, which is also reflected in our Q2 guidance. Growth in our active duty channel in the first quarter was mid-single digits. As we described on our last earnings call, Q1 Coast Guard, the smallest enrollment contributor of the armed services branches we educate, was affected by the then ongoing government shutdown and temporary suspension of the Department of Homeland Security funding. We had estimated that about 1 to 2% of total registrations were postponed. The good news is that DHS, and the corresponding education funds are now available as of April 30th. So we expect partial recovery in Q2, and we expect recovery of Coast Guard registration in Q3 and beyond. I was very proud to have participated in American Military University and American Public University's 30th annual commencement on Saturday, May 9th. Over 17,700 students including 23 doctoral students, and our Security and Global Studies program received diplomas. The oldest graduate is 78 years old, and the youngest is 16. Over 92% of our graduates are active duty military, veterans, military spouses, or family members. They represented all 50 states, 30 countries, and six territories. Congratulations to all AMU and APU graduates. As we turn our attention to Military Plus registration growth in Q2, we are experiencing growth in Army registrations, our largest enrollment branch. This momentum is being offset by a slowdown of registrations in Navy, Air Force, and Marines, which we are attributing to the nature of this war in the Middle East. which has deployed and put into combat Navy, Air Force, and Marine service members first. This has been signaled by our internal processes where our students have a mechanism to request a leave of absence accommodation and the ability to select deployment as the reason. We have seen an uptick in these requests for those three service branches. Offsetting this interruption, our veterans and family segments continue to demonstrate high teens registration growth in Q2 as well. So while Navy, Air Force, and Marine registrations are a headwind in the short term, we remain confident in our full-year guidance. Historically, when our active duty students are deployed or preparing to deploy, their educational progression can be delayed, but these students, for the most part, return. Additionally, with the performance of Army enrollments, we view this as a timing dynamic rather than a structural demand issue. Additionally, the Q2 adjusted EBITDA percentage reflects investments in incremental advertising of $2.2 million versus 2025 as we focus on mitigating the near-term impact of these deployments. Now let me turn to the positive progress on our institutional combination. On April 28th, we received approval from our accreditor, Higher Learning Commission, to consolidate our APUS, Rasmussen, and Hondros College of Nursing programs, locations, and operations into a single accredited institution, operating as the American Public University System, which we will refer to as the system in future communications. Now only one step remains with the Department of Education, which is the Department's approval of the combination and the completion of the OPEID merger. We are fully engaged with the Department and their process steps and continue to target an effective date for consummation of the combination at the beginning of the third quarter of 2026. Finally, as we turn our attention to full year 2026 performance, Given the strength of our first quarter results and our visibility into the balance of the year, today we are raising our full year 2026 guidance on revenue, adjusted EBITDA, and diluted EPS. I want to reinforce the message I delivered at the end of our last earnings call. The foundation is built. The business is simplified. The balance sheet is strong. And quarter after quarter, we are doing what we said we would do. Q126 is the first quarter of a four-year execution plan. We remain very confident about the significant runway ahead of us. We are just getting started. With that, I'll turn the call over to Ed to discuss our financial results and our updated 2026 guidance in detail.

Thank you, Angie. I'll begin with our first quarter results, then review our balance sheet, share an update on our share repurchase program, and conclude with our updated outlook for the second quarter and full year 2026. Total revenue in the first quarter was $174.7 million, compared to $164.6 million in the prior year period, an increase of $10.2 million, or 6.2%. First quarter revenue came in at the high end of our prior guidance range. Excluding $3.7 million of graduate school USA revenue in the prior year period, revenue would have grown 8.7% year over year. We believe this comparable growth rate is a cleaner read on underlying top line momentum. Now let's break down revenue by segment under our new reportable structure. At Military Plus, First quarter revenue was $89.4 million, compared to $83.9 million in the prior year period, representing 6.5% growth. The military plus segment income from operations was $30.7 million, compared with $24.1 million in the first quarter of 2025, an increase of 27%. This segment delivered an adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 36% in the quarter, reflecting the cost discipline work we completed during 2025. Net course registrations at Military Plus for the quarter were approximately 106,600 compared to 102,500 in the first quarter of 2025. At Health Plus, First quarter revenue was $85.4 million compared to $76.9 million on a recast basis in the prior year period, representing 11% growth. This segment delivered income from operations of $500,000 compared to a loss of $800,000 in the prior year period, reflecting continued enrollment momentum, disciplined cost management, and early benefits from our fill the back row capacity utilization initiative. The 11% revenue growth includes the benefit of a modest tuition increase and continued enrollment momentum. Turning to profitability, first quarter net income available to common stockholders was $17.7 million, or $0.94 per diluted share. compared to $7.5 million or 41 cents per diluted share in the prior year period. This represents a 137.6% increase in net income available to common stockholders and a 129.3% increase in diluted EPS. In addition to expanding operational margins, our below the line results were favorably impacted by an 8% effective tax rate during the quarter, driven primarily by higher than expected tax deductions as a result of the increase in our stock price. We expect the income tax rate to normalize in future quarters this year. First quarter adjusted EBITDA was $29.2 million, up $8 million or 37.5% compared to $21.2 million in the prior year period. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 16.7% compared to 12.9% in the first quarter of 2025, representing 381 basis points of margin expansion year over year. This reflects the operating leverage that is beginning to show up in our results. Please keep in mind that the prior year period included a Graduate School USA loss of approximately $2.2 million in adjusted EBITDA that did not recur in the current period. Turning to our balance sheet, we ended the first quarter in a very strong balance sheet position. As of March 31st, 2026, our cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash totaled $221 million. compared to $176.5 million at December 31st, 2025, an increase of $44.5 million or 25% in a single quarter. Total debt under our credit agreement was $90 million compared to $96.4 million at December 31st, 2025. We had excess cash over debt of $131 million up from $80.1 million at year end 2025. As a reminder, in early March, we completed a refinancing of our debt that reduced our borrowing rate by approximately 375 basis points and lowered principal from $96.4 million to $90 million. In connection with that refinancing, We recognized a $1.7 million non-cash write-off of deferred financing costs in the first quarter, consistent with what we previously communicated. For modeling purposes, interest income in 2026 is expected to approximate interest expense given our strong cash balances and improved borrowing rate. Also in March, our board authorized a $50 million share repurchase program. During the first quarter, we repurchased approximately 17,840 shares of common stock for total consideration of approximately $1 million. Consistent with the framework we described last quarter, the share repurchase program is being executed primarily to offset dilution from share-based compensation with flexibility to repurchase opportunistically subject to market conditions and our disciplined approach to capital allocation. Our strong balance sheet and cash generation continue to provide us with significant financial flexibility for organic growth investments, for opportunistic capital returns, and for the tuck-in M&A opportunities that are part of our four-year strategy. I'll now discuss our updated guidance. Based on our first quarter results and our visibility into the second quarter, we are raising our full year 2026 outlook on both revenue and adjusted EBITDA, and we are initiating second quarter 2026 guidance. Our guidance for the second quarter of 2026 is as follows. Revenue of $170 million to $172 million. net income available to common stockholders of 6.5 million dollars to 7.5 million dollars adjusted EBITDA of 16.5 million dollars to 18 million dollars and diluted earnings per share of 34 cents per share to 39 cents per share for the full year 2026 our updated guidance is as follows revenue of 686 million dollars to $696 million compared with our prior range of $685 million to $695 million. Net income available to common stockholders of $44.9 million to $51.6 million compared with our prior range of $41.3 million to $47.6 million. Adjusted EBITDA of $93 million to $102 million compared with our prior range of $91.5 million to $100.5 million. Diluted EPS of $2.33 per share to $2.68 per share, compared with our prior range of $2.15 per share to $2.47 per share. And CapEx of $28 million to $32 million, unchanged. Our updated guidance reflects our confidence in the trajectory of the business, continued enrollment momentum at Health Plus, expanded margins across both segments, and notable progress on each element of the strategic framework we outlined at Investor Day. In summary, the first quarter of 2026 was a very strong quarter for APEI. We exceeded our guidance, raised our outlook for the balance of the year, meaningfully strengthened the balance sheet and began returning capital to shareholders, all while continuing to execute on the long-term strategy we laid out at Investor Day. With that, I'll turn it back to Angie for closing remarks.

Thank you, Ed. In closing, the first quarter was a very strong start to 2026 and early proof that the simplification and strengthening work we completed in 2025 is translating into top line revenue growth, margin expansion, and EPS growth. Our Health Plus segment continues to demonstrate consistent enrollment and revenue growth, expanding margins, and the durability of demand for nursing and healthcare education. Our Military Plus segment continues to deliver strong margins and growth, even as we work through temporary active duty headwinds that we believe are event related rather than structural. At our November 2025 Investor Day, we laid out a multi-year framework with nine value creation initiatives, five at Military Plus and four at Health Plus, targeting organic revenue of $890 million to $925 million by 2029, representing an 8% to 9% revenue CAGR with adjusted EBITDA margins of 20% to 21%. With strategic investments in new campuses and potential tuck-in acquisitions, we see a potential path to a billion dollars in revenue by 2029. That framework is intact. Our Trailblazer new campus opening initiatives are on schedule. Our balance sheet is stronger than it has ever been. And we are only one quarter into a four-year plan. There is meaningful runway ahead of us and we are as optimistic today as we have ever been about APEI's long-term potential. Our organization is purpose-built to deliver affordable and accessible educational 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. We continue to believe that our education supports careers that require human judgment and our AI resilience. Our platform and sector tailwinds position APEI to accelerate growth and bring more educational opportunities to a greater audience. Before we move to questions, I want to thank our investors and analysts for the dialogue and engagement we've had over the past quarter. I also want to thank our entire APEI team for their commitment to continued student engagement, persistence, and success. With that, I would now like to hand the call back to the operator to begin our question and answer session.

Thank you. If you have dialed in and would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press star 1 again. If you're called upon to ask your question and are listening via speakerphone on your device, please pick up your handset and ensure that your phone is not on mute when asking your questions. Again, it is star one to join the queue. And our first question comes from the line of Tom White with DA Davidson. Your line is open.

Great. Good evening. Thanks for taking my questions. Two, if I could. I guess on the planned institutional combination, nice to see the HLC I'll finally sign off on that. Can you kind of update us on how we should expect kind of the benefits of that to work their way through your financial model over the coming quarters? Is it sort of a situation where, you know, maybe we see it in kind of operating expense efficiencies first as you can maybe centralize certain functions and then maybe followed by revenue synergies, maybe just sort of an update on the model impact And then just any early comments on the Orlando campus for RAS. I realize it's very early still, but just curious like how it's tracking versus, say, other kind of campus expansions that you guys have done over the years at this point.

Thanks. Great. Thanks very much, Tom, for the questions. First on the combination. In the back half of 2026, we don't expect significant financial improvements. And that's largely because we currently already operate in a shared services structure where we've got marketing, IT, legal, HR, finance, all shared and providing services to each of the education units today. Our main enthusiasm for the combination is both our revenue synergies, which we expect to start seeing in 2027 by bringing Rasmussen's expanded program offerings to Hondros' campuses and also cross-pollinating more RASISN programs to their existing campuses. So we also anticipate that as the combination moves forward and we see success in your second question, which is our campus openings, we have the opportunity through the combination to accelerate investments in campus openings once we see, you know, that we are proving out the model of investment and return on those campuses. So for the Orlando 2 campus progress, I'm going to turn it over to Gary so he can give you a quick update on that.

So I think we'd be, we're pretty happy with how Orlando 2 opened. I would say that We were a little late in the game, so we only got about a half of a quarter of enrollment, yet I think we hit our start targets for that campus, and I think Q2 will be a pretty good indication of what the ramp rate will be, but so far so good, and we're on track. One thing to note, I think that campus introduced practical nursing to the markets in Orlando, which we hadn't offered before, and offered it in a nights and weekends mode, which we also had not offered before, so it's Great to see it up and running, and I think we'll see good progress in the enrollments in our third quarter.

That's great. Maybe just one quick follow-up, if I could. Angie, I think you used the word sort of accelerated openings. I mean, if Orlando goes well, and I think you guys have talked about kind of like two new campuses kind of a year is in the plan, but is it safe to assume that you guys could kind of accelerate that pace Maybe not this year, but maybe next year, depending on how the rest of this year goes.

Thanks. We really are going to pay careful attention to what we call our Trailblazer Initiative, which is the campus openings. We see that the main obstacle, Tom, that might prevent us from going faster is whether we are expanding outside of the states where we already operate. Inside the states where we operate, we typically have already overcome the obstacles from a regulatory perspective. As we start to branch out to our adjacent states, there is a journey state by state on that regulatory process. But once we get our toehold in a new state, the expansion then accelerates again. So we are very confident we are on track right now. And we do hope that the early results will allow us to accelerate.

Thank you very much.

Thanks.

And our next question comes from the line of Griffin Boss with B Reilly Securities. Your line is open.

Hi, good evening. Thanks for taking my question. Just really one primary one for me would like to kind of expand upon what was just talked about. And I do want to just make sure that I call out the $63 million of cash flow from operations in the quarter was stellar. So that's great to see. And kind of on that, On that front, can you just maybe provide a little bit more color on your thought process around future strategic initiatives and investments? I mean, you've talked about, obviously, the campus relocations, and you just talked about the Trailblazer initiative. Just curious kind of where you're primarily focused on deploying the cash and using your strong balance sheet. Is it you know, is it going to be talking at acquisitions? Is it going to be more so focused on, you know, for their campus expansion initiatives? Excuse me. Any added color would be helpful.

Yeah, great question, Griffin. Thank you. So first, we are making sure that we are spending into the growth in each one of our currently owned businesses, right? So you heard us Investing more in marketing inside of APUS or the Military Plus Division, that's somewhat to offset the near-term headwind from the war in the Middle East. Beyond that, we are absolutely investing in our tech platform. One of the things we have underway is the combination of our – nursing schools, and so consequently we're moving on to a single tech platform. We're going to talk a little bit more about that in next quarter's call and what we're doing to innovate around that. So we're excited about that initiative. It does have some largely 2027 impacts, but perhaps late 26 as well. And then certainly our main focus are new campuses. And our main focus is tuck-in acquisitions. So we're actively working on that. It's one of Gary's top priorities. You know, it is a good time to be considering those possibilities. And we look forward to sharing any updates we have in future conversations.

Great. Well, thanks for that color, Angie. That's it for me. And again, great to see the progress. Thank you for taking that question.

Thanks, Griffin. Appreciate it.

And our next question comes from the line of Steven Sheldon with William Blair. Your line is open.

Hey, thanks and congrats to the team on the results. First one here on the updated 2026 guidance. I'm roughly estimating that it implies about 3% top line growth in the back half of the year if we adjusted for the estimated government shutdown drag in late 2025. Seems like that'd be more like 8% in the first half, excluding Graduate School USA. So is that mostly reflecting the slowdown in the certain military buckets you mentioned, the Navy, Air Force, Marines, and anything else to call out there beyond normal conservatism?

Stephen, thanks very much for the question. Are you specifically looking at the military plus division? Are you talking about overall?

Total company revenue guidance.

Total company revenue guidance. Gary, do you want to take that?

Yeah, and I'll have to look at the details, but I don't think we're looking at 3%. I don't think we've given the second half the details of each quarter in the second half, but don't forget we, again, had the shutdown. Are you seeing 3% excluding normalizing for the shutdown in the prior year?

If we added back the estimated drag from the shutdown in 4 to 25 and then taking out, you know, graduate school USA in the first half of this year, so trying to compare it on a, you know, a pure basis.

So I think it should be a little bit higher than that. And I would say, listen, our current revenue guidance right now is focused on the first half. In the second half, we're being a little bit more conservative about the second half of what it should be. And you're right to say that the military plus segment is not showing what I'll call the 7% growth that we were seeing previous to that because we're trying to meter the impact of the deployments and see how that plays out. But our guidance does imply continued growth within the Health Plus division, which we're seeing progressing at the rates we were talking about in the first half. So we're still moderating in the second half and then seeing what the impact is of the deployments and then also trying to understand what, you know, what the year-over-year comp would be absent the shutdown from last year.

Okay, got it. Yeah, I can dig in more if you guys want. Following up, you know, this is probably more from an industry perspective, but I guess, have you noticed any changes in the type of applicants that are pursuing nursing pathways in the health, on the health side, especially on pre-licensure nursing? And the reason I'm asking that there's a lot of increasing uncertainty in other fields around how ai may negatively impact employment levels down the road but that doesn't seem to be much of a perceived risk in healthcare including nursing which and there's a lot of obviously favorable secular trends there that could make it a very uh attractive pathway to employment so just curious if you're seeing any changes in the profile of applicants kind of giving those dynamics

We continue to see enthusiasm for the nursing program. As you know, because we offer three ways to become a nurse, an LPN, a two-year degree RN, or the bachelor's degree, which is a three-and-a-half-year program, it gives many different types of students with different levels of preparedness the opportunity to become a nurse. And so we haven't seen... We haven't seen a slowdown. We've seen a lot of continued interest. As I mentioned, our nursing enrollments are growing at high single digits. So we're very happy with the continued progress we're seeing in our nursing programs.

Good to hear. Thank you.

Thanks very much.

Our next question comes from the line of Luke Horton with Northland Securities. Your line is open.

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the questions and congrats on the quarter. Just wanted to circle back on the strategic investments. Just wondering if you could kind of outline what sort of criteria you would be looking for for a potential acquisition, whether that would you be looking at any smaller two to four campuses or would you wait for a larger kind of needle mover acquisition? Just any sort of criteria that you guys are evaluating there.

So this is Gary. I think our primary criteria is going into states in which we're not currently operating. So if we can find, and we're trying to stay, I think we said this before, trying to stay within the Midwest and the East Coast for right now. So we're looking at states where we currently don't have a license. We're looking at states that are generally contiguous to where we're operating. We're looking at locations where we believe that there's a good supply, demand, and balance in that state, and if we can accelerate our entry to that market by making an acquisition. So those are the primary criteria. If we have a single campus, that's certainly something we'll look at. If it has multiple campuses and we can get lucky enough to hit, you know, several of those opportunities in one fell swoop, we would certainly be interested in that as well. But we're not we're not ruling out anything that fits within the larger criteria of a state that we're interested in and the supply, demand and balance in health care are the two primary criteria.

Okay, great. That makes sense. And then second one, just on the military plus with the kind of deployments across Navy, Air Force, Marines, I guess historically, have you guys tracked like what sort of percentage of students that get deployed actually return and re-enroll? And also, I guess, within your guidance, I guess, what are you assuming for either a rebound or timing for those sort of enrollments?

Hi, Luke. Thanks for the question. So I don't know that we have tracked in the past. the return of those who have flagged themselves as asking for an accommodation for deployment, but we will try and run that down and see if we can get more detail on that. This is, you know, this is a different circumstance. Typically, the wars begin with Army moving first, deploying, setting up base camps, and then basically waiting. This was a war that was different than what we've experienced in the last several years, where it was an air and sea war immediately. And so when Navy, Marines, and Air Force deployed, they were in combat right away. So we saw more people requesting that accommodation for deployment and not taking education while overseas. than what we had experienced in past situations. So we'll try and run that down and see if we can get a stat for you on how many returns after deployment. Good question.

Got it. Great. Thanks, Angie, and thanks, guys.

Thanks very much. And our next question comes from the line of Eric Martinuzzi with Lake Street Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Yeah, I also wanted to follow up on the military enrollments. Just obviously the conflict started at the end of February. Did you see it? Was there your first evidence of the kind of the, you know, the active duty headwinds? Was that with your May starts or with your April starts? And did you see a difference between the two?

Yeah, great question, Eric. So our March start was very early in the quarter. And so at that point in time, we saw very few drops because you're right, the war did begin technically and effectively on February 28th. But we started to see the accommodation requests coming in for our April start and now for our May start. And so it didn't have as much of an effect in March. but we certainly started to see it happening as we headed into the completion of the April and May start. Gary, do you want to add to that?

No, I think that's right. I mean, we saw the uptick in deployment numbers, and then we saw that the branches that, so we were like, okay, what's going on? Why is that happening? And then we went back and looked. As Angie pointed out, Army looks, you know, a little bit light, but not, TAB, compared to what we've seen with some good growth rates, but it was typically what we saw that the you know the numbers that were lower than what we expected coming in from the branches that were you know, on the front lines of the deployment.

TAB, Okay, and then the second part is that the the outlook does it anticipate status quo does it anticipate a recovery at any point.

So I would say Q2, we would expect to be impacted a little bit more than in Q1 by the deployments. But we did, as Angie pointed out, we did deploy marketing that we think will help to offset that. So we believe that towards the end of the quarter, namely the last month of the quarter in June, we'll see some recovery. And then we believe we'll see additional recovery going into Q3. And then we'll just have to see how much we have to manage

deployments going forward it's you know it's unknown what happens from here so i don't get too far ahead of ourselves not knowing what what will or will not happen with the current situation over there but we do believe that the strength that we're seeing in veterans and military families gives us a very good foundation for us to invest behind those are high teen growth rates in the second quarter. And so as we've been sharing for the last several quarters, and so we're going to invest behind those two segments and really try and offset any of the short-term impact we might get from the three branches who are active and deployed right now.

Got it. Makes sense. Thanks for taking my questions.

Thank you.

And our next question comes from the line of Raj Sharma with Texas Capital Bank. Your line is open.

Hello. Thank you for taking my questions. Can I try not to beat a dead horse and go back to the military deployments? You know, there was, historically, there's been a certain number of deployments for every You know, certain number of deployments have resulted in a certain decrease in registrations. I think, if I recall, like 50,000 deployed got you 1,500 registrations less. I mean, how do you, and I know you've talked about this, and how do you see this, can you provide some color there in the sense of, you know, how do you see this particular deployment impacting the registration? And also, I have a follow, I have a question on, I mean, how do you, how would you allocate the marketing dollars to offset this impact? And is this, and is that related to the margin? I have a follow-on question on the margins in military. Sorry. Too many questions. Yeah, so let me start.

Yeah, of course. So thanks Raj for the great question. So 50,000 deployed active duty. We know that about 10% use their education benefit at any given time, so that gives us 5000 of those people are somewhere in their educational journey. We know that we educate 30% of all active duty who are taking classes, so that math that you laid out absolutely 1,500 students, right? Typically, our students in any given quarter are taking about two registrations, one to two registrations. So you'd have to multiply that by, say, 1.5, 1.6, right? And I think that that then really points to, you know, the difference between mid to high single digit registrations and mid single digit registrations. So You know, we're kind of triangulating this on several different measures, and that's another measure that I appreciate your bringing up. So, yes, we really believe that when we can redirect the marketing dollars that we talked about, $2.2 million of incremental spend in Q2 beyond what we had originally planned, towards veterans and families, we will be able to drive more momentum in those segments. We also know, as you are all well aware, that our active duty come to us from referral at about a 40% rate. So it does cost us a little bit more to get our veterans and our family members than it would cost us if we were investing that $2.2 million in our active duty. But we believe it's a very well-timed investment because we really are trying to be sure that we are continuing to deliver on the enrollment targets that we set out for APUS. And you can see our confidence in the business by the virtue of the fact that we raised guidance on the revenue and the adjusted EBITDA for the full year. So we believe that we've got the mitigation strategies well in hand for APUS.

Got it. That's super helpful. And so I have a related question on, you know, if you look at the margin, your margin slide sheet, military, there's a solid margin increase, 32% to 36%. So you're saying that, and I think you commented that perhaps that goes back down to 32% at the end of the year because you allocate more advertising and marketing costs?

That's correct, Raj. Great margin improvement, but we don't expect to sustain that throughout the year. And part of the reason is that incremental $2.2 million. Having said that, we're still guiding for the full year in the neighborhood of that 15% EBITDA margin, which would be an improvement over last year's 13.2%.

Perfect. Perfect. And then just following through to the nursing, there's an improvement in the margins there, but sequentially, but, you know, there's a drop sequentially from Q4. Is that, we want to understand, is that because nursing is kind of close to break even, so it's tough to kind of figure out how to scale that up quarter to quarter and get a consistent margin increase?

No, that's largely not. I mean, it's a good question. So if you recall last year, you know, when Q1, we had timing between Q1 and Q2 of instructional materials. So there's roughly $2.8 million of instructional materials last year that didn't exist as we rolled out new materials and that modified the margin in Q2. So it's really just the timing. It's just really the differences year over year of that $2.8 million that didn't exist. So we literally had no instructional materials due to the way the contracts were written with our vendor at the time. And then there's some additional other items, a little bit more marketing spend. But that's really what drove the margin difference between, I mean, you're right, the margin was very low. in Q1 from where we would expect it to be, and we would expect to see the flow-through margins much better in Q2 through Q4 for the remainder of the year.

That's a one-time contract matter, Raj. I think we talked about it last year in Q2, which the contract gave us a quarter for free, basically, so we did not have instructional material costs in Q1 of 2025.

Got it. And then just if I can ask one last question, just can you comment on the sensitivity of the Department of Education, you know, their sensitivity to the cohort default rates? And I presume that you are better positioned with a huge military focus to this issue, but how are you thinking about the upcoming CDR disclosures? Are you well positioned here in this regard?

Yeah, I mean, I'll answer it, and I think the answer is we're monitoring it. So certainly with the military, we have a lower borrowing rate, but that's not how it's measured. It's the students that did borrow, how many of them are repaying the loans. So one of the biggest concerns is what is the behavior and pattern of people that haven't been repaying? So we feel we're in good shape based on our third party that helps us out with these things. But we're keeping an eye on it because students that were asked not to pay their loans for a long period of time all of a sudden are being asked. And changing that behavior I think will take some time to instill in the students that are in repayment. But the answer is we feel good about where we're at, but it's something we're going to have to keep on top of as students go into repayment for the first time in a long time.

Awesome. Thank you so much, and congratulations again on solid, consistent results. Thank you.

Great. Thank you, Raj. Thank you.

And our final question comes from the line of Jasper Bibb with Truist Securities. Your line is open.

Hey, everyone. I'll just keep it to one. I was hoping you could talk about how you're approaching student acquisition. I guess some of your competitors talked about search algo changes or the shift to answer engines potentially impacting the top of the funnel a bit? As I think you mentioned earlier on the call, your referral rate is super high, so maybe you'd be dealing with less of that than some of your peers, but just wanted to hear about your experience there and how you're managing some of these kind of changing consumer behaviors.

Yeah, great question, Jasper. Thanks for the question, and I'll start and turn it over to Gary as well. So you're absolutely right. At APUS, because we have such a significant amount of our new students coming from referral, that we aren't seeing really any meaningful change to our acquisition cost or the momentum behind acquisitions, setting aside the three branches of the military. we're very positive about the continued momentum at APUS. We have not seen a slowdown in our acquisition of new nursing students. And I'll turn it over to Gary because he's been working closely with the marketing team and the enrollment team based on exactly what you've been hearing in the market, which is other people pointing to this particular topic.

Yeah, I will say that, as Angie pointed out, it's so important. small portion of our business, we've seen some of that same behavior, right? Which is the non-healthcare portion of our online at the Health Plus division and a small portion of our health online that we've seen that the algorithms that use AI are picking up ways to prioritize the keywords in the algorithms. And we're aware of it and we were responding to it. We've deployed resources similar to others. We haven't seen a material impact because the other portions of our business are growing, you know, as we would expect. But it's something that we do, you know, we have to address just like everyone else is and feel comfortable we understand what the root causes are and what we need to do to, you know, bring the algorithms back in line. Appreciate the detail there.

Thank you for taking the questions.

Great. Thanks very much, Jasper.

And that concludes our question and answer session. I will now turn the conference back over to Angie Selden for closing remarks.

Thank you very much for all who have participated today. We remain very enthusiastic about 2026 and our four year plan. We have built the foundation for the next several quarters of success and we see in front of us significant momentum both in top line revenue in expanding margins and also an expansion of our earnings per share contribution. So thank you to each of you for joining us today. We look forward to connecting with you all very soon.

And ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call and we thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.