speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Good day and welcome to the Universal Technical Institute second quarter 2026 earnings conference 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 a touch tone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star then 2. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Matt Kempton, Vice President of Corporate Finance and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

speaker
Matt Kempton
Vice President of Corporate Finance and Investor Relations

Hello and welcome to Universal Technical Institute's fiscal second quarter 2026 earnings call. Joining me today are our CEO Jerome Grant and CFO Bruce Schumann. 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 investor.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 undue 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 2025. 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?

speaker
Jerome Grant
Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Matt. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Before I dive into the details of our second quarter results, I want to take a moment to give you some insight into how we're thinking about the business right now. The first half of the year has played out quite well, and in some areas, better than we originally anticipated. As always, a huge thank you to our team, industry partners, and over 26,000 active students for being a part of this and driving these strong outcomes. Let me tell you, demand is strong, our model is working, and we have exceptionally clear visibility into the returns on our strategic North Star investments. we're seeing increasing validation that these investments are driving the outcomes we expected. With that in mind, I'll walk you through our Q2 performance and execution before I take you on the journey of opportunities ahead of us. And in a few minutes, our CFO, Bruce Schumann, will dive deeper into our financials. Building on what's been a strong start to the year, we saw some key leading indicators come in at or above our expectations. further reinforcing our confidence in the trajectory of our business. We delivered yet another quarter of strong operational performance, supported by sustained demand across both of our divisions and continued execution against our North Star strategy. Total new student starts increased 14% year over year in the quarter, with meaningful contributions from both divisions. The UTI division delivered approximately 15% growth, while the Concord division grew 13%. highlighting the consistency and durability of demand across both our trades and healthcare. Average full-time active students grew 7%, reflecting continued momentum as we scale both new and existing campuses. Core growth and program expansion performance translated into continued top-line strength, with revenue of $221 million, up nearly 7% year-over-year. Our baseline adjusted EBITDA came in at $25 million, including approximately $11 million of growth investments. Our reported adjusted EBITDA was just over $14 million, in line with expectations. Our performance in the first half of the year has reinforced our confidence in our full-year outlook, and as such, we're reaffirming our guidance on all metrics. Bruce will walk you through the guidance in more detail shortly. We believe this reaffirmed strong outlook for 2026 reflects our confidence in the performance of the business, while also setting us up brilliantly for the final three years of this phase of our North Star strategy. It's not just the macro demand environment that gives us this confidence, but also how we're executing against a model that is proving to be both repeatable and scalable. Our campus launch playbook continues to deliver consistent results, and importantly, those results are trending in line or ahead of our expectations. At UTI San Antonio, which opened in March, each of the first two starts exceeded our plan by nearly 60%. Based on early performance, we now expect the campus to ramp to scale at or better than originally modeled, with a projected mature run rate of approximately 800 students. In Atlanta, we're preparing to launch our first comprehensive UTI campus in the state. This campus is expected to serve over 1,500 students at scale. We're already seeing great traction, with strong interest in early enrollments pacing well in preparation for the planned start in July. Although these are exciting results in 2026, more importantly, they are early leading indicators critical to ensuring the success of this multiyear strategy. They validate not only demand, but also our ability to execute faster and fill campuses more efficiently than originally modeled, giving us increased confidence looking at our broader new campus pipeline. Looking ahead to fiscal 2027, we remain on track with our four previously announced locations across the country and are excited to see those launch next year. These campuses include a comprehensive UTI campus in Salt Lake City, expected to serve 1,500 students, as well as Concord campuses in Houston, Atlanta, and the Phoenix metro area, each with projected run rates of approximately 600 students. Throughout all of this, the North Star operational targets we've previously outlined remain unchanged. We plan to open a minimum of two and up to five new campuses annually, as well as launch 12 to 20 new programs across the UTI and Concord divisions each fiscal year. In fiscal 2026, we will have opened three new campuses and are on track to launch 20 new programs with at least 10 coming from each division. On the UTI side, we have two campuses and 12 programs lined up this year. The new programs span HVACR, aviation maintenance, and our electrical suite, which includes industrial maintenance, robotics and automation, and wind and turbine technology. Most recently, the UTI Sacramento campus graduated its first HVACR class in January, and the UTI Austin campus successfully delivered its first EV courses in February. On the Concord side, we've opened one new campus, and across our existing campuses, we'll launch at least 10 new programs in 2026, including high-demand fields such as radiation technology, surgical technology, and diagnostic medical sonography. Beyond program replications and new campuses, we're also continuing to focus on optimizing our existing footprint. As you may recall, we recently expanded the UTI Dallas campus to serve an additional 600 students and incorporate HVACR, aviation, and electrical programs in addition to auto diesel and welding. Since launching last quarter, all of the program enrollments and starts have exceeded expectations and the second half of the year looks to be just as promising. In addition to expanding capacity for popular programs such as aviation, HVACR, welding, and the dental hygiene at legacy campuses, we're increasingly focused on how UTI and Concord divisions can collaborate more closely across areas such as marketing, admissions, and operations. Through cross-brand collaborations fueled by rapid AI technology advancements, we believe we can potentially unlock incremental margin expansion in the coming years while simultaneously enhancing execution across the company. And while on the topic of artificial intelligence, I want to focus on some extremely important opportunities ahead of us for our company. As many of you know from the stories in the media, each quarter as U.S. jobs data is published, We are in the early stages of a generational shift in the labor market. Driven in large part by artificial intelligence, the long-standing dynamic between white-collar and skill-toler jobs opportunities has been disrupted. AI is reshaping the economy, but not only in the way many initially expect it. As white-collar work is becoming increasingly automated, especially at the entry levels, demand for trades in healthcare professions is accelerating. Beyond this shift, it's important to realize that there are also new AI-enabling opportunities and roles essential to building, maintaining, and operating the infrastructure that supports this new economy. From data centers and energy systems to advanced manufacturing and healthcare delivery, the physical and technical workforce required to support AI-driven growth is expanded rapidly. This is exactly where we are positioned. We're not only training students for today's job, We're preparing them for the future AI-enabled workforce that's being built right now. Importantly, we believe that this trend is not cyclical, it's structural. We believe this dynamic will continue to drive demand for our programs for years to come. Supported by both powerful macroeconomic tailwinds and long-term partnerships, the opportunity in front of us continues to expand. We maintain strong relationships with leading industry partners including, for example, a nearly 30-year partnership with Porsche. This quarter, we reached a memorable milestone with them. As of February, UTI has now graduated over 1,000 technicians from the Porsche training centers we run that are serving more than 200 Porsche stores nationwide. We also recently announced a new three-year partnership with Fuji Auto Spray, who will provide professional-grade equipment for the collision repair and aviation programs on the UTI campuses across the U.S. Long-standing industry partnerships are a cornerstone of the success of our graduates and our company, and we continue to pursue additional such opportunities across automotive, aviation, healthcare, and other high-demand industries. Similarly, we're actively exploring potential B2B opportunities with military programs, state workforce initiatives, and employers to help address critical labor shortages across the economy. As we look ahead, our confidence in the business continues to strengthen as our North Star strategy moves into full implementation mode. We have built a durable and repeatable growth engine supported by strong demand, discipline execution, a very healthy balance sheet, and meaningful long-term macro tailwinds. Organically, we will continue to optimize our campuses and program portfolio, drive operational excellence, and expand both capacity and program offerings to meet demand. At the same time, we'll continue to evaluate inorganic opportunities that align with our strategy, particularly in healthcare, where we see significant long-term potential. Our priorities remain focused on executing our North Star strategy with discipline, as well as deploying capital with purpose to position the divisions to deliver sustained growth and value. And we are already starting to discuss what 2029 and onwards looks like for the company. We will share more on that as our plans unfold. With that, I'll turn the call over to Bruce, our CFO, to review our second quarter financials and provide you with additional details on our guidance. Bruce?

speaker
Bruce Schumann
Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Jerome. I'll start by saying we're pleased with how the business has performed through the first half of the year. The results we're reporting today reflect a strong start to fiscal 2026 with solid revenue growth, continued momentum in enrollments, and leading indicators across the business that remain very encouraging. In the second quarter, total average full-time active students grew 7.2% year-over-year to 26,385, while total new student starts increased 13.8% to 7,569, in line with the expectations we outlined last quarter and reflective of recently launched new campuses and programs starting to ramp. The Concord Division grew average full-time active students 10.2% year-over-year for the second quarter, driven by consistent demand trends across our dental and allied health programs. Within the UTI Division, average full-time active students grew 5.3% year-over-year, reflecting steady performance across the program portfolio, underpinned by strong demand and recently optimized campus capacity. Turning to our financial performance, second quarter revenue on a consolidated basis increased 6.7% to $221.4 million. Concord contributed $78.7 million, an increase of 7.5% over the prior year quarter, while the UTI division contributed $142.7 million, an increase of 6.3% over the prior year quarter. Shifting to profitability, consolidated net income for the second quarter was $400,000, or one cent per diluted share, which was in line with the outlook we shared last quarter. Baseline adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter was $25.1 million, including $11 million in growth investments. Our SEC reported adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $14.1 million. At the end of the quarter, we had 55 million shares outstanding. Total available liquidity at the end of the quarter was $202.4 million, including short-term investments and remaining capacity on our revolving credit facility. Year-to-date capital expenditures were $52.7 million, or approximately half of our expected spend for the year. Turning to our full-year outlook, based on our performance in the first half and the visibility we have into the second half, we are pleased to reaffirm our fiscal 2026 outlook. We continue to expect consolidated revenue to range from $905 to $915 million for fiscal 2026, or approximately 9% year-over-year growth at the midpoint. As I shared last quarter, we expect mid to high single-digit revenue growth in Q3, as we saw in Q2. Q4 is still anticipated to be the highest revenue growth quarter in the low to mid double-digit range. Net income is anticipated to be between $40 million and $45 million, with diluted earnings per share of 71 to 80 cents. As I also shared in prior quarters, the net income contraction in Q2 will improve in Q3, though we still expect year-over-year contraction. In Q4, we expect strong net income growth. Our baseline adjusted EBITDA is anticipated to exceed $150 million. Including approximately $40 million in growth investments, our SEC-reported adjusted EBITDA is expected to be between $114 and $119 million. Similar to net income, as we make our significant growth investments this year, the adjusted EBITDA contraction in Q2 will improve in Q3, though we still expect year-over-year contraction. In Q4, we expect robust year-over-year adjusted EBITDA growth. Total new student starts are expected to be between 31,500 and 33,000. We anticipate high single-digit growth in the remaining quarters as our base business performs and our growth initiatives continue to ramp. Looking at the broader North Star financial framework, our expectations remain unchanged. We continue to target more than $1.2 billion in revenue by fiscal 2029 with a 10% CAGR throughout that period and adjusted EBITDA approaching $220 million in that year. Beginning in fiscal 2027, we expect revenue to accelerate and are targeting modest EBITDA dollar growth and more meaningful EBITDA expansion in fiscal 2028 and 2029. To support the new campuses and programs driving this growth, we continue to plan for $100 million or more of annual capital expenditures. Overall, we view the first half of the year as a strong start, reflecting solid execution, improving demand trends, and continued progress against our North Star strategy, giving us increased confidence in the repeatability and durability of our model. We are investing from a position of strength with clear visibility into the path ahead. The actions we are taking in 2026 are intended to support faster scaling, higher utilization, and stronger long-term returns, including predictable and sustainable cash flows and increasing profits for years to come. At the same time, we are creating additional opportunities to expand margins through increased operational efficiency, and greater leverage as the company further grows, reinforcing our confidence in delivering on both our fiscal 2026 guidance and our longer-term financial objectives. In addition to this earnings call transcript, we encourage everyone to review our press release, financial supplement, investor presentation, and upcoming 10-Q filing. These materials include the latest updates on our consolidated and segment results, strategic initiatives, and guidance. Thank you to our students, team, partners, and investors for your ongoing support. I'd now like to turn the call over to the operator for Q&A. Operator?

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your touchtone phone. 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 the question, please press star then 2. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question comes from Mike Grundahl with Northland Securities. Please go ahead.

speaker
Mike Grundahl
Analyst, Northland Securities

Hey, guys. Congratulations on the progress Maybe the first one for Jerome. You know, you talked about data centers a little bit more this call. Are you seeing, you know, incremental opportunities there, and are you able to start new programs? How are you kind of responding to that, and what are you seeing?

speaker
Jerome Grant
Chief Executive Officer

Well, I think the example we gave was really to highlight, you know, the sources of job opportunities for the students in the programs we already teach are growing and in some cases accelerating. Data centers need welders. Data centers need electronics technicians, building automation specialists, all of the things that we have. If you've listened to some of the folks in the AI space talking about what's holding them back, it's not technology, it's their ability to actually get these places open because they can't find enough workers. And so what we're seeing from a job standpoint is a stronger diversification of employers that are coming to the table and looking for our skilled trades workers.

speaker
Mike Grundahl
Analyst, Northland Securities

Got it, got it. And then maybe one for Bruce. Bruce, when you were talking about UTIs, I think enrollment up 5.3% year over year, you mentioned recently

speaker
Bruce Schumann
Chief Financial Officer

optimize campus capacity could you just explain that a little bit yeah sure mike so i mean the our optimization has been a core foundational pillar we've been talking about for quite a while and we continue to optimize capacity looking for space in legacy campuses to put these program replications things like hvac welding aviation We're using some of our legacy campuses to roll that out. That's what I was referring to. That work continues and is continuing to improve our margin outlook.

speaker
Mike Grundahl
Analyst, Northland Securities

Can you speak to, like, hey, you expanded capacity a couple percent over the last six months, or is there any way to kind of quantify that?

speaker
Bruce Schumann
Chief Financial Officer

Well, I mean, basically, if you look at our base, our core business, you know, what we delivered last year, roughly 100 basis points of expansion. we would have kind of delivered similar if it weren't for the growth investments. A lot of that comes, probably more than half of that comes from that optimization pillar of our strategy. That's the best way I could explain it to you, Mike.

speaker
Mike Grundahl
Analyst, Northland Securities

Got it. Got it. Okay. Hey, thanks a lot, guys.

speaker
Unknown

Yeah, thanks, Mike.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Our next question comes from Raj Sharma with Texas Capital.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Please go ahead.

speaker
Raj Sharma
Analyst, Texas Capital

Hi, congratulations on the execution. Also, thank you for taking my questions. Sure. If I could talk about any, you know, also great new details in the data in the supplementary. So that's very appreciated. I was just trying to understand revenues were up. you know, about 7% year on year, the operating expenses were up 16%. And even if I take out the growth OpEx, your OpEx of 11 million, if you take it out, the OpEx was still up about 10%. I'm trying to understand that. Is that all the increase in advertising?

speaker
Bruce Schumann
Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. Hey, Raj, it's Bruce. Yeah, I can address that. So a lot of it really is we're executing the year here. There's a little bit of timing. element, frankly, as we execute our full year. Again, I would just remind you the vast majority of that margin contraction really was from the growth investments. There were a few other things. Timing, our medical, for example, was up a little higher than we planned on. We chose to invest a little bit more in marketing to make sure we are on track for our second half revenue and starts. But it's really timing. We have offsets for that in Q3, and we feel very confident in our full year profitability to be guided to.

speaker
Raj Sharma
Analyst, Texas Capital

Got it. Thank you. And then I know you reaffirmed the fiscal guidance. Is it fair to assume that you're looking for stocks growth to perhaps be higher for the year given your first half performance?

speaker
Jerome Grant
Chief Executive Officer

And I know that doesn't impact the current year numbers, but sorry. Hey, Bobby, thanks for throwing that in there because it was the thing I was going to say. As a leading indicator, we're very, very happy with what we're seeing, primarily the overachievement of the new campuses and the new programs that we're putting into place. And yes, that monetizes mostly over 27 and beyond. So, you know, we've got a lot of, you know, a lot of confidence that that's going to continue to happen. Now, will San Antonio continue to sit people at 60% higher than what we had in the model? you know, not likely, but it's a very, very strong start, and we think that it'll continue to move past our models, as is the programs that we're moving on. So we feel, you know, real confident that the starts aren't going to fall anywhere near below and, you know, could be in the top part of the range.

speaker
Unknown

So I feel good about it. Great.

speaker
Raj Sharma
Analyst, Texas Capital

And then just for me personally, any sort of new opportunities that could expand your current growth plan, or do you think you're good for now until you get to, you know, the North Star II strategies that there's likelihood of not any further expansion in that?

speaker
Jerome Grant
Chief Executive Officer

No, I actually, I mean, remember, we're at the end of 26. We're two years into a five-year strategy. We We're set up very – for the strategy the way it's laid out right now, which is primarily an organic strategy of, you know, two to five campuses a year, 12 to 20 new programs a year, modest base growth out of our same store, you know, two to five percent growth in our same store. What we're trying to express is a high level of confidence in the execution on the plan as is. All of that, which you're talking about, would be sort of gravy on top. And there's a lot of great conversations going in the B2B space right now that I wouldn't count out opportunities during this five-year timeframe that could have some impact on the upside of that number. Nothing to announce today. But, you know, there are a lot of employers and manufacturers out there right now that are seeing the same thing we're needing, which is the supply and demand problem is growing, not shrinking. And that brings them more to the table to have constructive conversations around partnering to solve it. So we feel good that some of that will come in line during this strat plan period, not after. Okay.

speaker
Unknown

Thank you for taking my questions. I'll take it offline. Again, congratulations. Hey, thanks, Raj.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

The next question will come from Max Michaelis with Lake Street. Please go ahead.

speaker
Max Michaelis
Analyst, Lake Street Securities

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Just a two-parter here. San Antonio looks like obviously you have terrific starts there, up 60% versus your internal expectations. Anything different you did there in terms of go-to-market advertising that you could share? And then the second part of that question would be, obviously, that's a pretty high standard that San Antonio has already set, but what kind of demand trends are you seeing at the Atlanta, new Atlanta campus, and would you put that on par with San Antonio?

speaker
Jerome Grant
Chief Executive Officer

Well, why don't I answer in reverse? Okay. we're really happy with what we're seeing in Atlanta. We don't, we don't really like to talk about, you know, pre-start numbers because we want to make sure that we get people, you know, comfortably in their seats and, and, and, and moving forward. But the trends we're seeing in terms of contract pace for the timeline, remember, we still have till July to, to get this open makes us real confident that Atlanta is going to be quite the winner for us. Once we get past our, our, I think when we report in August, we're going to have some solid numbers for you, and we're really optimistic about what we're going to see there. One of the things I think we've always said to you, the analysts, and folks out there is Texas has been a very, very strong market for us. Austin blew away our projections quite quickly, and our thoughts about San Antonio is that could happen. Of course, again, not counting your chickens before they hatched, We didn't want to go out there strong. Well, what we're seeing is that's quite true, right? Which is there is a very strong demand in Texas for what UTI is bringing. So we're thrilled with what we see. And, you know, when we're picking new sites around the country of which, you know, Salt Lake City is coming up and then the subsequent sites from there, we really do think about those same metrics as can we see a way to beat our models and And when we're picking sites of the many that are available, we're really looking for where we might be able to ramp the fastest. And so far, we're really happy with what we're seeing with the first two, which is San Antonio and Atlanta.

speaker
Unknown

Awesome. Thanks, guys. Thank you.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Up next, we have Jasper Bibb with Truist.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Please go ahead.

speaker
Jasper Bibb
Analyst, Truist Securities

Hey, good afternoon, everyone. It's a quick clarification question. I heard high single-digit growth in starts in the next two quarters. I think they had guided to mid-to-high single-digit growth for those quarters on the last call. So just wanted to confirm you're kind of thinking this year is going to end up in the upper end of the range on starts. Is that kind of the right way to think about it? Yeah, Jasper, this is Bruce. That's correct. That's how we're thinking about how the year is shaping up. Okay, makes sense. And then some of your, I guess, online education peers have talked about, like, the consumer shift to Gen AI over search and algorithm changes at Google kind of impacting the top of the funnel on student acquisition a bit. The starts are obviously strong, so it doesn't seem like an issue for you, but I'm just wondering if you're seeing something similar and how you're managing through that.

speaker
Jerome Grant
Chief Executive Officer

Well, it's actually one of the reasons that we wanted to underscore the collaboration going on between the two divisions, specifically in areas like customer acquisition, marketing, is that, you know, there is a pretty significant shift in how people are searching for opportunities out there. You know, much in the same way as TV moved to streaming very, very fast for the 18 to 24-year-olds, you know, information is moving quite rapidly to the AI engines from traditional search. And we want to make sure that we're on the leading edge of capturing that as those advertising platforms harden over the next months and years. And so what we really wanted to do is we really wanted to make sure that our digital organizations were working in unison one, so we're not overspending researching these things between the two divisions, and number two, that each of them can take advantage of the opportunities that we're seeing by beginning to invest in these areas. So, you know, we feel like we're well-positioned to get the most out of that transition.

speaker
Jasper Bibb
Analyst, Truist Securities

Last one for me. I think you mentioned kind of ongoing discussions for B2B partnerships, also potentially some opportunities with the military or state workforce development programs too. So I guess maybe my question is, are you seeing a broadening kind of interest in the types of B2B partnerships that are coming to you and, you know, potentially a different structure too versus, I guess, what you already did versus Heartland with the Heartland campus?

speaker
Jerome Grant
Chief Executive Officer

So the short answer is yes. You know, there is a broadening of who is approaching us to see whether we can't help them solve their problems, whether it is municipalities, other portions of the military who may be engaged with some of the onshoring activity to help people who are trying to solve that problem, hospital chains, things along those lines where they're starting to think we better act in concert with some of the larger partners like ourselves in the country. The incoming is definitely on the rise and broadening and where we get them. You know, I made a comment about, you know, data centers and infrastructure for AI. Two years ago, we weren't getting calls from construction companies that were opening data centers around the country looking for HVAC techs, welders, electricians, building automation specialists. Now we are. And so I think those are all opening doors for opportunities for us to potentially look at training models in unique and innovative ways. But those things take time. And again, like I said, we had nothing to announce on a specific front on those, but we are staffed up and diligently focused on it because we think those are going to be an opportunity over the next couple of years. Thank you.

speaker
Unknown

Thanks for giving questions, guys. Thanks, Jasmine. Thank you.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Our next question comes from Steven Frankel with Rosenblatt. Please go ahead.

speaker
Steven Frankel
Analyst, Rosenblatt Securities

Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity. Maybe give us an update on what kind of incentives employers are offering these days in terms of tuition payback, working while you're going to school, et cetera. pace continue to climb with more people trying to do that? Or in the current economy, have they backed away from some of those moves?

speaker
Jerome Grant
Chief Executive Officer

No, that's a great question. There's a lot of conversation out there right now around student debt and leaving college with large student loan balances and the like. And even there's been things in the press around trade school folks coming out with debt. And so The programs we started in auto diesel a number of years back that have gotten us to a point where somewhere in the neighborhood of 6,000 employers nationwide are offering incentive packages to our graduates to come and work for them are continuing to proliferate as we proliferate our product offerings into the skilled trades. This is a new concept to HVAC companies, to uh, electronics companies to aviation companies. And so, um, the trip agreements as we call them are something that we're, we're working to broaden, uh, across the, uh, entire, uh, portfolio that we have. And, and we're seeing, you know, quite good responses. So, um, so we've seen anything other than employers backing away from incentives because the problem is getting more acute.

speaker
Steven Frankel
Analyst, Rosenblatt Securities

Great. And, uh, Any early learnings from Heartland that would lead to the way you might do the next one?

speaker
Jerome Grant
Chief Executive Officer

You know, Heartland is, you know, there are no new aha moments there, which is you've got an employer who has become a very strong partner with us, who has a very big problem. and is willing to co-invest to solve that problem around the country. And the time it takes to get others to get on the same page is usually tied to them trying to see what the outcomes will be from the partnerships that we already have. And Harlan's very happy. The cohorts that we started were very strong. And we anticipate doing similar deals with other partners very soon.

speaker
Steven Frankel
Analyst, Rosenblatt Securities

And then lastly, any early peek into what you think the high school class is going to look like this year?

speaker
Jerome Grant
Chief Executive Officer

High school looks good. I mean, again, I think one of the things that we've said over the years is that high school kids tend to gravitate towards the automotive and diesel areas. you just got your driver's license and you're 16 and you don't know that much about HVAC or welding or those sorts of things. And so, uh, it's primarily a focus in the auto diesel areas and, and, you know, we're seeing, uh, strong returns from, from what we've seen, you know, it's a good point to bring up and, and, you know, we're very, we feel very, very strong about our, um, our guidance that we have and, and coming in, uh, in the range on the guidance that we have. But to your point, you know, half of our starts on the UTI side come in the fourth quarter, and it's mostly to high school. And we just want to make sure that those are coming in as strong as the leading indicators show.

speaker
Unknown

All right, great. Thank you. Sure. Thanks, Steve.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

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

speaker
Jerome Grant
Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Operator. Just some brief remarks. First of all, I'd like to thank everyone who attended today. As always, Bruce, Matt, and I are available for follow-up questions. And also, as we've said every single quarter, we encourage as many of you as possible to come out and visit one of our campuses. If you're interested, please let us know. We'd be happy to host you. Love doing that. And we look forward to speaking with you on our investors call in fiscal third quarter, which will be in August. So, thanks.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

and have a great evening the conference is now concluded thank you for attending today's presentation you may now disconnect

Disclaimer

This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

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