Universal Technical Institute Inc

Good day and welcome to the Universal Technical Institute's second quarter 2025 earnings call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Matt Kempton, Vice President, Corporate Finance and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Hello and welcome to Universal Technical Institute's fiscal second quarter 2025 earnings call. Joining me today are our CEO Jerome Grant and CFO Bruce Schuman. Following our prepared remarks, we will open the call for your questions. A replay of this call, its transcript, and our investor presentation will be archived on the investor relations section of our website at .uti.edu, along with our earnings release issued earlier today and furnished to the SEC. During this call, we may make comments that contain forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which, by their nature, address matters that are in the future and are uncertain. These statements reflect management's current beliefs and expectations and are subject to a number of factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those statements. These factors include, but are not limited to, those discussed in our earnings release and SEC filings. These statements do not guarantee future performance and therefore under reliance should not be placed upon them. We do not intend to update these forward-looking statements as a result of new information or future developments, except as required by law. Please note, unless otherwise stated, all comparisons in this call will be against our results for the comparable period of fiscal 2024. The information presented today also includes non-GAAP financial measures. These should be viewed in addition to, and not as a substitute for, the company's reported results prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP. All non-GAAP financial measures referenced in today's call are reconciled in our earnings press release to the most directly comparable GAAP measure. For more information regarding definitions of our non-GAAP measures, please see our earnings release, financial supplement, and investor presentation. With that, I will turn the call over to Jerome Grant, CEO of Universal Technical Institute for his prepared remarks. Jerome? Thank you, Matt.

Good afternoon, everyone,

and

thank you for joining us to discuss our results for the second quarter of 2025. Over the past few months, I've heard from many of you, which is great, as we pride ourselves on keeping the lines of communication open with the investment community. With everything going on in Washington, many of you were interested in how we're responding to the changes already made and potential changes in the regulatory environment. So before I get into our strong Q2 results, I'd like to start today's call by briefly sharing my views on recent regulatory developments and the broader macro environment we're operating in. Despite our initial cautious outlook for both the 2025 top and bottom line heading into the presidential election and recent developments across the higher education regulatory landscape that may suggest otherwise, I'm pleased to share that we've not experienced any disruptions to our operations or growth trajectory. As a matter of fact, the lines of communication with the new leadership team within the Department of Education have only strengthened since the inauguration. Our expansion plans remain firmly on track, and depending on how circumstances evolve, we may actually be positioned to accelerate the growth of our conquered and UTI divisions. We certainly will share specific news on that front as plans take shape. With respect to tariffs, we expect impacts, if any, to be minimal for us, but we'll keep monitoring for changes. From a macro environment perspective, demand for skilled labor, particularly across the trades and healthcare, also continue to strengthen in this environment. The ongoing supply and demand imbalance in these critical sectors and improving dialogue in favor of trade schools over traditional four-year degrees is generating additional tailwind for our business. Employers continue to voice their urgent need for well-trained professionals, and our campus network and program offerings are increasingly aligned with that demand. With that, let's move to the results for the quarter. We maintained strong operational momentum throughout the second fiscal quarter of 2025, continuing to deliver results that exceeded our expectations. We executed with discipline and consistency, staying focused on our growth, diversification, and optimization strategy, while navigating dynamic macro environment and prioritizing outcomes for our students. Given the broader uncertainty in the market, we were conservative with our estimates and deliberate with our spending throughout the quarter. As a result, and in conjunction with the favorable environment for our graduates, both revenue and adjusted EBITDA significantly outperformed forecasts. Revenue for the second quarter increased nearly 13% -over-year to $207.4 million. Average full-time active students grew over 10% -over-year to 24,604 students, with the new students starts growing more than 21% -over-year. Net income increased 47% to $11.4 million, with diluted earnings per share of 21 cents. Adjusted EBITDA grew approximately 28% -over-year to $28.9 million. We are pleased with the strong results we are sharing today. They serve as a powerful proof point of our business model's strength and resilience, reinforcing our confidence in achieving our long-term goals. We remain firmly committed to delivering both -over-year top and bottom line growth throughout the second half of 2025. Now to our division-specific highlights for the quarter. Starting with Concord, the division continued to deliver robust -over-year growth, driven by sustained marketing investments and the effectiveness of our admissions team, as well as strong program demand. Our marketing and admissions investments in Concord continue to generate very strong conversion rates, driving new student starts. We are continuing to test the elasticity of the Concord model, and we have yet to find the ceiling on how far we can push ROI. Regarding Concord's program expansion strategies, our previously announced initiatives remain on track, including the launch of a brand new nursing program in Jacksonville, Florida in mid-fiscal 2025, our Dallas nursing program capacity expansions, which is set to add 60 additional students later this year, and the 10 non-title IV short course programs rolling out across the Concord campuses in 2025. With optimization in mind, we're relocating our Aurora, Colorado campus to Denver. This is part of our ongoing plan to enhance operations, expand programs, and improve margin. The new campus will occupy 60,000 square feet and will open in February of 2026. This reimagined space will include new simulation lab for students to gain hands-on experience with real-life medical scenarios, as well as additional space earmarked for other high-demand programs, as well as a larger dental hygiene clinic. Shifting to our partnerships, I'm pleased to announce that we broke ground on our new co-branded Heartland Dental Campus in Fort Myers, Florida last month. This -its-kind campus, set to open in early fiscal 2026, will train up to 190 dental hygienists and assistants annually. As previously mentioned, this campus will begin as a non-title IV campus with plans to apply for title IV funding once conference growth restrictions are lifted. We expect this location to contribute more than $4 million in annual revenue as the campus scales. Turning to our UTI division, the UTI division maintains strong -over-year improvements, largely as a result of program expansions, the immense market demand for skilled college workers, and our strong lead conversions. Building the foundation for UTI's continued success are our ongoing expansion efforts. This quarter, we made exciting progress on our program expansion initiatives. As we previously announced, we have eight full-length programs launching across UTI campuses this year. In March, we added our HVACR program to our UTI Orlando campus, and most recently launched our Electrical, Electronics, and Industrial Technology, or EEIT, program at UTI's Exden and Mooresville campuses. This new 12-month EEIT program will train students for entry-level careers in low-voltage electronics and high-voltage electrical systems for certain residential and commercial construction applications. This program also includes the maintenance of industrial technology, including industrial robotics, hydraulics, and mechanical systems. By expanding our portfolio with in-demand programs, we're continuing to reach even more students in high-demand employment areas. Additionally, as part of our North Star Strategy's Phase 2, we plan to open three campuses in 2026, subject to regulatory approval. These are the Heartland-Concord co-branded campus, a fully optimized UTI campus with a comprehensive set of program offerings in Atlanta, and most recently, we announced the last of the three campuses in 2026, our inaugural Skill Trades-focused UTI campus in San Antonio, Texas. The San Antonio campus will offer programs in high-demand skilled trades, including HVACR, welding, and electrical technologies, aligning with our strategy to diversify our educational offerings and meet the evolving needs of our workforce. This expansion marks a significant step in broadening our program offerings beyond our traditional transportation-focused training. We anticipate that this campus will open in the first half of fiscal 2026. When fully ramped, this campus should contribute upwards of $23 million in revenue, with significant margin contribution. Our optimization efforts are also progressing well. We expect our MIT Canton campus, along with the Motorcycle Mechanics Institute, Marine Mechanics Institute, and NASCAR Technical Institute campuses to officially operate under the Universal Technical Institute brand in the coming months. With the sustained robust performance across both divisions, our conservative spending, and a favorable macro environment, I'm pleased to announce that we are raising our fiscal 2025 guidance ranges once again. We now anticipate generating consolidated revenue between $825 and $835 million, reflecting approximately 13% -over-year growth. We now expect adjusted EBITDA between $124 and $128 million, and we now expect new student starts to be between $29,000 and $30,000. Bruce Schuman, our new Chief Financial Officer, will walk through our updated fiscal 2025 guidance in depth in just a moment. Bruce recently joined as CFO, bringing deep experience from high-growth, multi-site organizations and a proven track record for leading financial operations through transformative periods. His leadership will be critical as we pursue significant growth and profitable opportunities, driven by rising demand for skilled trades and healthcare professionals across the U.S. We're excited to have Bruce on board and on the call with me today, and look forward to his partnership in advancing our strategy. We also promoted Todd Hitchcock to Chief Operating Officer. Todd has been instrumental in every phase of our transformation, including developing and driving the North Star strategy focused on growth, diversification, and optimization. His leadership in operational alignment, shared services, and campus performance has been key to our success.

In his

expanded role, Todd will strengthen our market position as we scale to meet the growing workforce demands. Supporting these efforts, Adrian Dutre recently joined as Chief Information Officer to lead the build-out of a modern technology and data platform, further enhancing our operational visibility and the student experience. I'm thrilled that our team's now fully in place to execute on phase two of our North Star strategy with great focus and precision. With that in mind, I'd like to take a few moments to reiterate what phase two of our strategy is. We're committed to launching at least six new programs each year across Concord and or UTI campuses, pending regulatory approval. In addition, we plan to open at least two new campuses annually beginning in fiscal 2026. We've already announced nine new programs for fiscal 2025 and three campuses for fiscal 2026, demonstrating that we're not only on track to meet our objectives, but positioned to exceed them. Financially, this organic strategy should result in revenue exceeding $1 billion by the end of 2029 and adjusted EBITDA margins approaching 20%. As we mentioned on our last call, it's important to note that our EBITDA margins will reflect increased investment in fiscal years 2026 and 2027. These strategic investments are expected to temporarily moderate margin growth before new campuses and programs begin to scale, ramping margin expansions significantly in Fiscals 2028 and 2029. With that, I'll turn the call over to Bruce, our CFO, to review our second quarter financial results. Bruce? Thank you, Jerome.

It's a pleasure to be here with you all on my inaugural earnings call with UTI. I am thrilled to be part of a company that plays such an important role in providing the U.S. economy with the skilled workforce solutions that are critical for growth. I look forward to partnering with Jerome and the leadership team to help drive the next phase of our North Star strategy. With that, let's dive into our second quarter results. Q2 marks another quarter of consistent execution as we outperformed our expectations and delivered strong growth. For the second quarter, average full-time active students increased .3% year over year to 24,604 students. New student starts increased .4% year over year to 6,650 starts, exceeding our expectations. The Concord division drove a .5% increase in average full-time active students compared to Q2 24, while new student starts rose .9% year over year in the second quarter. These increases were driven by further investments in Concord's marketing and admissions and the effectiveness of those teams. The UTI division generated a 7% increase year over year in average full-time active students for the quarter. New student starts grew .4% year over year in the second quarter. The year over year increase is largely due to robust demand for skilled collar workers and strong lead conversion rates. Turning to our financial performance, second quarter revenue on a consolidated basis increased .6% year over year to $207.4 million. Concord contributed $73.2 million, an increase of .3% over the prior year quarter, while the UTI division contributed $134.2 million, an increase of .8% over the prior year quarter. From a profitability standpoint, consolidated net income for the second quarter was $11.4 million, or 21 cents per diluted share. Adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter was $28.9 million, a year over year increase of 27.8%. As Jerome mentioned earlier, we were deliberate in our spending throughout the quarter, which helps drive out performances in all key financial metrics. Included in these results is $400,000 of growth investment spend, primarily on our program expansions. At the end of the quarter, we had 54.4 million shares outstanding, and total available liquidity at the end of the quarter was $235 million, including $40 million of short-term investments and $99 million of remaining capacity on our revolving credit facility. During the second quarter, we paid down an additional $25 million on our revolver, ending with positive networking capital of $13.4 million. -to-date operating cash flow was $22.2 million, and adjusted free cash flow was $8 million. -to-date capital expenditures were $14.3 million as we continued to progress our program expansion and new campus initiatives across both divisions. Fueled by our strong second quarter performance and ongoing execution on our strategic priorities, we are raising our fiscal 2025 guidance ranges across all key metrics. Starting with revenue, we now expect to generate between $825 and $835 million of revenue for fiscal 2025, or approximately 13% -over-year growth at the midpoint. This reflects the strong growth in average full-time active students from program expansions and deliberate investments we've made this year. Total new student starts in fiscal 2025 are expected to range between $29,000 and $30,000. Regarding the balance of the year, we anticipate both Q3 and Q4 revenue growth rates to be in line with our full-year guidance of about 13%. For starts, due to increasingly tougher comparable periods, we expect Q3 growth in the -to-upper single digits and Q4 likely closer to low single-digit growth. Adjusted EBITDA margins by quarter should follow a similar pattern as last year due to the seasonality in our business. For fiscal 2025, we are raising our net income expectations to a range of $56 to $60 million, with diluted earnings per share projected between $1 and $1.08. We anticipate full-year adjusted EBITDA to now range between $124 and $128 million, or around a 23% -over-year increase at the midpoint. We now expect 2025 full-year adjusted free cash flow to range between $62 and $68 million, which continues to assume approximately $55 million in capex spend. Consistent with our historical cadence, we still anticipate the bulk of our cash generation and -over-year growth to occur in the fourth quarter. Looking ahead, we are entering an exciting phase of investment to fuel our next chapter of growth. As Jerome mentioned, I want to reiterate that while our investments for phase two of the North Star strategy are expected to generate significant returns over the next five years, our margin expansion over that timeframe will not be linear. As new campuses' ramp and program expansions are built out, we anticipate EBITDA growth in fiscal 2026 and into 2027 will slow as a result of the associated growth investments. As these initiatives scale, we expect to build meaningful momentum, setting the stage for significant EBITDA growth acceleration into fiscal 2028 and 2029. We are confident these strategic investments will unlock even greater growth opportunities and further strengthen the scalability of the broader UTI model. In addition to today's earnings call transcript, we encourage everyone to review our press release, financial supplement, investor presentation, and the upcoming 10Q filing. These materials provide the latest updates on our consolidated and segment results, strategic initiatives, and guidance. Thank you to our team members, partners, students, and investors for your continued support. I'll now turn the call back over to Jerome for closing remarks. Jerome?

Thank you, Bruce. Our team continues to execute on growth, diversification, and optimization as part of our North Star strategy. While favorable macro trends, particularly the ever-rising demand for skilled trades and healthcare professionals provide a solid foundation to build upon, it's our execution, operational rigor, and commitment to student outcomes that are driving our success. Looking ahead, our growth initiatives remain sharply focused. Organically, we're one, growing our campus footprint into greenfield locations, two, expanding the reach of our existing programs and adding new in-demand offerings, and three, deepening industry relationships and broadening our partner network. Inorganically, we continue to pursue strategic acquisitions that will enhance our educational reach geographically and complement our portfolio with a particular focus on healthcare. With strong momentum, a fully aligned leadership team, and a clear, proven strategy, UTI is exceptionally well positioned to continue to drive sustainable growth and long-term value creation. Our healthy financial profile, extraordinary outcomes, and consistent execution give us confidence in our ability to continue delivering meaningful stakeholder returns into the years ahead. We appreciate your continued support and look forward to keeping you updated on our progress. As always, we encourage you to visit our campuses to see firsthand the impactful initiatives we're driving. Please, don't hesitate to reach out if you'd like to schedule a tour. And now, we'd like to turn the call over to the operator for Q&A. Operator?

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then one, on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star, then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble

our roster. Our first question comes from Mike Grandel with

Northland Securities. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Thanks, and congrats on a really nice quarter. Two kind of quick questions. One, very strong new starts. Any campuses or programs to really call out in there because of that performance? And then secondly, you mentioned in the press release taking advantage of favorable tailwinds. I can think of trades over four-year colleges, job demand, the administration. Maybe just highlighting what you see as those tailwinds just to make sure I understand them. Thank you.

Well, thanks, Mike. Jerome here. Thanks for joining. Why don't we take those questions in reverse? First of all, the things that are fueling what we're seeing, some pretty impressive lead generation. You actually pretty much answered the question with the points you made for what's driving there's significantly more energy being focused right now on the notion that four-year colleges aren't necessarily for everyone. That message is resonating with parents. We're hearing it when we're talking to parents. You understand that for just about everything we do in both divisions, the parents are involved in this decision because most of our students are still at dependent status, and their parents are part of the decision. So that message is beginning to get through quite strong. I think some of the messages around the political environment of on-shoring and we want to build more here, we want to be a stronger infrastructure here is actually making people say, okay, what kind of jobs are those? Those are jobs where you're a welder or you're an electrician or the American auto industry and things along those lines. So that's again what we believe and what we're hearing is fueling heightened interest in the skilled collared areas. And then finally, your first question, which was are there any particular areas? Well, we've continued to put increased marketing investment in the healthcare side pretty much across the board. There's particular strength in our clinical courses. That tends to be the front door where people come in and say, I want to be a nurse or a physical therapist or something along those lines. And so as we continue to work on the project we talked about and put in place to really get the biggest potential out of our clinical courses, we're seeing a lot of strength in our clinical courses. That's one thing to highlight. And then on the UTI side, I think, highlighting the skilled trades. The cornerstone of UTI has always been the auto diesel curriculum and it's still holding strong and moving along nicely. But our program expansions tend to specifically be around proliferating much more in the way of skilled trades on the legacy UTI campuses. And what we're seeing is those are filling faster than our models. We are seeing that the interest is higher, more local and more adult, which is actually good for mature decision making and the ability to start faster. And those would be the things I'd highlight for what we're seeing.

Thanks for that. Congratulations

again.

Thanks,

Mike.

Our next question comes from Jasper Bibb

with Truist. Please go ahead.

Hey, good afternoon, guys. I heard the enrollment and revenue comments during the second half. Just, I guess, curious how that enrollment growth breaks out for UTI and Concord at the segment level in the third and fourth quarter. And I guess, was the increase in new start guidance driven by one segment or you ended up outperforming the plan at both schools?

Well, I mean, the nature of looking at the third and fourth quarter has something to do with the mix and then also something to do with, you know, what we've been saying quarter by quarter with Concord, which is, you know, we'll continue to win on the Concord side. We'll continue to invest in looking for the upside. But we can see as we're approaching our capacities on the on the clinical courses that continuing to be able to generate that higher double digit growth, as you saw in this, is something that will likely become challenging. It's also because we started this project in the second half of last year and therefore we're kind of lapping ourselves on some of those investments. And so not that, you know, not that we wouldn't be thrilled to be able to take advantage of that and that we're not ready to take advantage of it, but it's just not something that it's probably prudent for us to project. And then on the UTI side, in terms of the cadence of the rest of the year, a lot of the rest of the year has to do with high school and high school is by and large, pretty much over now. And therefore, right now, what we're working on is is in a sense shepherding the high school population that have always already committed into their seats in June, July, August and September. And the last question I had was about where are we seeing the biggest bright spots and maybe the upside surprises that we're seeing on the UTI side. And it tends to be around the skilled trades, you know, welding, etc. HVAC and and the the skilled trades tend to lend themselves to more of our quote, quote, adult population or those that have already left that have already left high school a year or two, three, three years ago, usually engage in the skilled trades area, whereas a lot of kids coming out of high school are very much I'm a car person. I want to fix cars. And that's not to say that auto diesel isn't doing well. It's just not seeing as big of those increases as as we see in the skilled trades. And so the combination of it being very much about about high school and the work we've done over the last now year. And we're laughing ourselves in high school is why we believe that the trajectory is as we outline high single digits and and mid single digits in the in the fourth quarter. Should I get to your question?

Yeah, no, that's helpful. And then on the comments around higher growth investments in 26 and 27, maybe driving slower EBITDA growth versus twenty twenty nine. I think the EBITDA CAGR in your five year plan is about 15 percent. So I imagine you're saying 26 is much slower than that. But is there any way to kind of, I guess, more specifically frame a range for what EBITDA growth looks like in 26?

Well, we we we actually introduced that concept last quarter, which was that we took two years off from from building campuses while we were, in a sense, digesting the two acquisitions that we had with only launching two years ago, almost now launching Austin and Miramar. And so that sort of creates a gulf of strategic investment in 24 and 25. But with opening three new campuses in 26, we haven't even announced the program expansions in 26. And then beginning the investment in the campuses that we will be announcing for 27, you see a significantly more strategic investment than you saw in 24 and 25. And we want to make sure people are. And the other the other point on that is we're no longer adjusting that strategic investment out of our non-GAAP measures because of so how we're working with the SEC and rulemaking, et cetera, that we will note in our messages what the strategic investment want, but it won't be it won't be piled into our adjusted EBITDA as it was in the past. And so we still are confident that over that that the period of 2025 through 2029, you'll see an average growth rate in double digits, as we've said before, and that we believe we still will be approaching a 20 percent margin at the end of that period of time. But as we did in the last quarter, what we're what we're signaling is you'll see higher strategic investment in 26 and 27, which will limit the the the percentage growth rates of our adjusted EBITDA number until those campuses built in 2026 and 27 come to scale in 28 and 29. And then the trajectory moves forward.

And Jasper, this is Bruce. The other quick thing I would add to that is if you look at the the revenue component of kind of that five year tagger, we do expect the revenue piece to be roughly linear. It's really the EBITDA side, excuse me, where you're going to kind of see that bend in the curve, if you will, kind of slower growth rate 26, 27. You'll see kind of accelerated EBITDA growth 20 and 29. We still feel confident in that ultimate kind of 20 percent marker by 29.

Appreciate the details there. Thanks for taking questions, guys.

Our next question comes from Bruce Goldfarb with Lake Street Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Jerome and Bruce, congratulations on the great results and thanks for taking my questions. Sure. Could you comment on trends in employer demand for both transportation and skilled trades graduates and health care graduates? Sure.

First of all, transportation is something that's been a known quantity to UTI for 60 years. And so, you know, generally speaking, if you think about sort of the accuracy of reading trends moving forward, that would be the place where we probably have the most dependability over the years because of our ingrained position in in in the transportation trades area. And therefore, what we're seeing is steady, consistent and growing, but not explosive, the growing demand in the in the transportation area. We as we've said before, there's still our three or four jobs for every UTI transportation graduate on the job board. And we project that will continue to be so, if not grow because of the graying population of the workforce over the next over the next, you know, 10 years. Skilled trades is actually something that's somewhat new to UTI. Remember, we bought MIT, which got us into HVAC and the electrical areas and wind energy and aviation and some of the other areas that we hadn't been before. And we're just now proliferating them into the 14 legacy UTI campuses, along with the two MIT campuses where we have already merged Houston and we plan on bringing Auto Diesel into the Canton campus. Anyway, so, you know, our projections and estimates as we moving in are always what we believe to be national. What we can see in the data that we're putting out over it and what I'm signaling here is that they're every bit of what we saw, if not better. And what we're hearing people say is we're getting a lot more demand if we're for welders, if we're going to be building ships and planes, et cetera, in the U.S. You know, we can't get enough electrical workers to keep up with data centers that are being built and things along those lines and that HVAC techs are in very, very high demand. So we're happy with what we're seeing in the trajectory of the demand in skilled trades. It's somewhat outpacing our initial estimates of what we expected to see. And we've got room for them and we're building our facilities to have room for them as we move forward. And we're happy to see that demand is robust. On the health care side, it isn't so much our getting to know what the demand side of health care is, is actually getting to know what this great engine that we bought in Concord can do to meet that demand. We've always known that the supply and demand curve in health care is significantly out of out of lack and that it's even stronger than it is in the in the transportation, skill trades and energy division. Our upside has been our ability to continue to work closely with the marketing and organizations on the Concord campuses to to find more people to help fill some of that to help fill some of that demand. And so no surprises in terms of health care of how big the demand is. But, you know, we're thrilled with what we're seeing and our ability to go out and capture more of it with with bringing more people into our campuses.

Thank you.

Get your question. Okay. Yeah, thank you. That's awesome. Hey, thanks for joining.

Thank you. Wait, a couple more quick. Oh, okay.

That's

okay. Could you comment on the level of activity in your corporate development efforts and also seller attitudes versus, you know, what was, you know, versus six months ago?

Probably comparable to maybe a little less activity out there. You know, if you if you think about it, people are seeing what we're seeing, which is demand becoming robust, more focused on the skilled trades, more focused on on health care, more focus on four year colleges aren't necessarily what what what what you'd want. Doesn't mean that there aren't opportunities that are out there. But, you know, the the the number of for sale signs, you know, probably is a little a little smaller than than what we would expect it.

So it makes sense. And then in terms of marketing spend, what is the plan for marketing spend? Is it there or is it going to be more level or targeted for certain quarters? For the next several. I mean,

we're going to we're going to continue to invest. We've seen some really nice kind of ROI, especially on our Concord marketing spend. Very good return. Very good lead conversion. You know, we'll continue that. It's a little bit program dependent, but you will see as ramp marketing as we feel like there's a good ROI to do so.

Right. Thank you.

Congrats again. Hey, thanks. Appreciate it.

Our next question comes from Griffin Boss with B. Riley. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good evening. Thanks for taking my questions. I appreciate the level of detail you provide in the prepared remarks in the Q&A. So just one from me, if I could just drill down into this EBITDA trajectory. I guess what I'm hearing with regard to that in the next couple of years, it comes down to the magnitude between OPEX investment and CAPEX investment. So I guess what I'm hearing is there's going to be significantly higher OPEX investment in 26 and 27, I guess on that education services expense line. Is there any way you can handicap that for us? Like what that OPEX investment is looking like this year? And then, you know, what it would look like going forward in, you know, more of a investment heavy year like 26 and 27.

Yeah, thanks, Griffin. This is Bruce. I don't really have a guide for you on 26 yet. We're still working on that. I'll put it maybe in perspective for you. Second half of this year, we put this in our supplement too. We have about $6 million of growth OPEX, very focused on campus build out, some early hiring we have to do, very focused on that kind of North Star, you know, phase two strategy. We do have some pretty significant CAPEX as well. We were public about we have a $55 million CAPEX spend for this year. We still have about 40 of that to spend. And, you know, 70% of that is fully focused on growth investments, new campus build outs, program expansions that are mission critical to make sure our 26 growth stays on track. And we look forward to sharing that with you as soon as we can. So hopefully that puts into perspective for you.

Yep, yeah, that's great. Thanks a lot for the detail, Bruce. Appreciate it and congrats on a great quarter.

Thanks. Thank you.

Our next question comes from Raj Sharma with Texas Capital Bank. Please go ahead.

Hi, thank you for taking my questions. Great quarter, great continued results. My question, my first question is on starts. Are the gains and starts purely from, you know, better marketing, great lead gens like you commented or would you attribute any to the higher uncertainty or beginning to see any, you know, increased uncertainty in an impacted economy?

I can't put my button on an impacted economy right now. I think, you know, we've called recession how many times over the last number of years without any employment shifts to it whatsoever. And so, you know, I don't believe that what we've seen is any negative or positive economic factors affecting it. I think that the lion's share of what you're seeing in the upside of the starts, which we're thrilled to see and we've got room for more, is the increased investment that we're making in Concord to help them reach their fullest potential and get up to those full caps in terms of their clinical courses and then as that sort of migrates its way down to their core courses medical assisting, et cetera. That's one place where you're really seeing it. And then on the UTI side really around the skilled trades, right, is that you go into the skilled trades market, you put all these programs onto the UTI campuses, you project a trajectory in the markets based on the best information and intelligence that you have and, you know, the outperformance on those is really what's driving the upside we're seeing in the earlier part of the year here for UTI in terms of, you know, more HVAC, filling all the welding points. You notice that one of our new tenants to expansions is capacity expansions. We're increasing the capacity in several of our campuses right now by adding more welding booths, et cetera, because we're seeing more drive and demand in the trades.

Right. So largely from the demand supply, the gap and your great execution on the marketing side, you still haven't seen any from sort of the, you know, potential rise in unemployment or a weakening economy. That's fantastic. You know, the young adults starts were really high, military up a lot, anything in particular going on there on the military side?

Well, I mean, we've ramped our presence on the military from 16 to I think 26 recruiters, and we're in the second full year of that ramping. And that's, as we said before, when you when that really takes shape, right, you have the ability to really ramp that. We've had an increased effort on the veteran population, meaning people have been out of the military for more than a year, but are accessing their GI bill. I would tell you that it's it's somewhat shocking and extraordinary how many of our veterans don't know that they have the GI bill. And so we've had some conservative effort of getting more information about about what those benefits really are and how they and their families can take advantage of it. We're seeing the upside along that our group's doing a great job on that front. And we're continuing to add adult reps on Concord side as the lead flow continues to outstrip our expectations through the investment that we're we're putting in there.

Great. And then to sit on the Concord restrictions, they end in 2026. Any plans there? What you are keying up to? And you also commented that you could possibly be speeding those growth plans, bringing them forward a little bit more. Could you comment on that? What could those be?

We're ready to go. You know, we've been our real estate team and our program and campus launch teams have been formed and are on the starting line ready to go. And so, you know, one thing we want to do is we want to, you know, we want to leverage the stronger relationships we have with the Department of Education to get those conversations going so that, you know, we're ready when the growth restrictions are lifted. And if it's possible for them to be earlier, we'll continue to press on that. So and as I said in the call, we think that the new Department of Education, although smaller, is working in a significantly more efficient and communicative fashion and that we're, you know, generally happy what we're seeing and the communication we're having with them.

Great. And just one last question, I promise. The guidance rate, the raising guidance in, you know, appears conservative in the results, you know, with given that you have a full-time active students across all programs, they're already in their seats. The second half starts won't affect the fiscal 25-year results much in my senses that any greater costs in new programs, campuses won't either. I guess my question is what could go wrong here or keep you from achieving the low end of your guidance here given that you have the business model that you know what, you know, all the seats are in place and given your results recently.

We feel very comfortable and confident in our new guidance ranges that we put out there. You've hit a lot of the points yourself there, meaning you've kind of answered some of your own questions as you laid that out. Again, I think, you know, what we tried to explain was that, you know, we've also been working very, very hard to get more of our high school population into the third quarter from the fourth quarter, which slants them towards auto diesel. It also monetizes them more throughout the year, which is good to see. But we're just looking at the second half of the year, which is a little bit more than a quarter of the year. So, we're not seeing a lot of double-digit growth rates in that period because it does slant significantly to the high school population.

Right. Thank you. Thank you so much for your color. I'll take it offline again. Great results. Congratulations.

Great. Thanks, Raj. Good to hear from you.

This

concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Jerome Grant, CEO, for any closing remarks.

Thank you very much, operator. And I'd like to thank everyone for attending today. As always, Bruce, Matt, and I are available for follow-up questions over the next few days. And we look forward to speaking with our investors and analysts as we have a great evening. And thank you for your time and joining us. Bye-bye.