American Public Education, Inc. (APEI) Q1 2026 Earnings Call

0:00 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 twenty twenty six Earnings Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session. 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 twenty twenty six results. Joining me on the call today are Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer Edward Codisboti, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer and Gary Jansen, Chief Strategy and Growth Officer.

0:57 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 uncertainties 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 ks and Form 10 Q under the heading Risk Factors and other SEC filings.

1:54 Forward looking statements may sometimes be identified by words like believe, estimate, expect, may, plan, potentially, project, target, outlook, past positions, on track, on pace, should, will, would and similar or opposite words. Forward looking statements include, without limitation, 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 and A, opportunities, operational milestones and timelines, the 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.

2:49 As Angie will discuss, beginning with the first quarter of twenty twenty six, 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 03/02/2026. 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 Hondros 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.

3:39 Management believes that the presentation of non GAAP financial information provides useful supplemental information to investors regarding its results of operations and should only be considered in addition to and not as substitute for or superior to any measure of financial performance prepared in accordance with GAAP. I'd now like to turn the call over to APEI's President and CEO, Angela Selbyn. Angie, please go ahead. 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 twenty twenty six results. Total revenue grew 6.2% year over year and at the top end of our guidance range.

4:26 Notably, when we exclude graduate school's 2025 revenue from the prior year period, the business that we sold in mid-twenty twenty five, APEI's revenue would have grown 8.7%, which we believe is more indicative of the underlying strength of our business. Beyond revenue, we beat guidance on adjusted EBITDA, which grew to $29,200,000 which is a 37.5% improvement over 2025. The prior year period does include $2,200,000 of graduate school losses and the 2026 period includes a onetime favorable impact from the tax treatment of our stock appreciation.

5:17 Ed Codisboti, APEI's CFO, will discuss the details of these matters shortly. We also beat items on net income per diluted common share, which was $0.94 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.

6:10 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 03/02/2026, 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 HealthPlus.

6:56 Our HealthPlus institutions continue to perform very well. HealthPlus 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 twenty twenty six 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 twenty twenty seven.

7:51 As we turn our attention to Q2 twenty twenty six 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 teens registration growth for both military families and veterans. The segment operated 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.

8:48 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 30. So we expect partial recovery in Q2, and we expect recovery of Coast Guard registrations in Q3 and beyond.

9:35 I was very proud to have participated in American Military University and American Public University's thirtieth Annual Commencement on Saturday, May 9. 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.

10:20 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.

11:11 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 $2,200,000 versus 2025 as we focus on mitigating the near term impact of these deployments.

12:13 Now let me turn to the positive progress on our institutional combination. On April 28, we received approval from our creditor, Higher Learning Commission, to consolidate our APEI, 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 OPEI D 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 twenty twenty six.

13:08 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. Q1 twenty twenty six 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.

14:00 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 $174,700,000 compared to $164,600,000 in the prior year period, an increase of $10,200,000 or 6.2%. First quarter revenue came in at the high end of our prior guidance range. Excluding $3,700,000 of Graduate School USA revenue in the prior year period, revenue would have grown 8.7% year over year.

14:51 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 $89,400,000 compared to $83,900,000 in the prior year period, representing 6.5% growth. The Military Plus segment income from operations was $30,700,000 compared with $24,100,000 in the first quarter of twenty twenty five, 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.

15:43 Net course registrations at Military Plus for the quarter were approximately 106,600 compared to 102,500 in the first quarter of twenty twenty five. At Health Plus, first quarter revenue was $85,400,000 compared to $76,900,000 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.

16:31 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 $17,700,000 or $0.94 per diluted share compared to $7,500,000 or $0.41 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.

17:31 We expect the income tax rate to normalize in future quarters this year. First quarter adjusted EBITDA was $29,200,000 up $8,000,000 or 37.5% compared to $21,200,000 in the prior year period. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 16.7% compared to 12.9 in the first quarter of twenty twenty five, representing three eighty one 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 $2,200,000 in adjusted EBITDA that did not recur in the current period.

18:23 Turning to our balance sheet. We ended the first quarter in a very strong balance sheet position. As of 03/31/2026, our cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash totaled $221,000,000 compared to $176,500,000 at 12/31/2025, an increase of $44,500,000 or 25% in a single quarter. Total debt under our credit agreement was $90,000,000 compared to $96,400,000 at 12/31/2025. We had excess cash over debt of $131,000,000 up from $80,100,000 at year end 2025.

19:13 As a reminder, in early March, we completed a refinancing of our debt that reduced our borrowing rate by approximately three seventy five basis points and lowered principal from $96,400,000 to $90,000,000 In connection with that refinancing, we recognized a $1,700,000 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 $50,000,000 share repurchase program.

20:02 During the first quarter, we repurchased approximately 17,840 shares of common stock for a total consideration of approximately $1,000,000 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 and A opportunities that are part of our four year strategy.

20:51 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 twenty twenty six guidance. Our guidance for the second quarter of twenty twenty six is as follows: revenue of $170,000,000 to $172,000,000 net income available to common stockholders of $6,500,000 to $7,500,000 adjusted EBITDA of $16,500,000 to $18,000,000 and diluted earnings per share of $0.34 per share to $0.39 per share.

21:42 For the full year 2026, our updated guidance is as follows: revenue of $686,000,000 to $696,000,000 compared with our prior range of $685,000,000 to $695,000,000 net income available to common stockholders of $44,900,000 to $51,600,000 compared with our prior range of $41,300,000 to $47,600,000 Adjusted EBITDA of $93,000,000 to $102,000,000 compared with our prior range of $91,500,000 to $100,500,000 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 $28,000,000 to $32,000,000 unchanged.

22:48 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 twenty twenty six 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, an early proof that the simplification and strengthening work we completed in 2025 is translating into top line revenue growth, margin expansion and EPS growth.

23:51 Our Health Plus segment continues to demonstrate consistent enrollment and revenue growth, expanding margins and the durability of demand for nursing and health care 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 multiyear framework with nine value creation initiatives, five at Military Plus and four at Health Plus, targeting organic revenue of $890,000,000 to $925,000,000 by 2029, representing an 8% to nine percent revenue CAGR with adjusted EBITDA margins of 20% to 21%.

24:40 With strategic investments in new campuses and potential tuck in acquisitions, we see a potential path to $1,000,000,000 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.

25:28 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.

26:19 With that, I would now like to hand the call back to the operator to begin our question and answer session. Star one on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press star one again. If you're called upon to ask your question and are listening via speakerphone on your device, And our first question comes from the line of Tom White with D. A. 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 that HLC 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 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

27:51 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 twenty twenty six, 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 Rasmussen programs to their existing campuses.

28:48 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 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. Yes. 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.

29:35 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 the 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. Just, Angie, I think you used the word sort of accelerated openings. I mean, 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.

30:29 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.

31:17 Thank you very much. Thanks. And our next question comes from the line of Griffin Boss with B. Riley 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 $63,000,000 of cash flow from operations in the quarter was stellar. So that's great to see. Kind of 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 the campus relocations and, you know, this you just talked about the Trailblazer initiative.

32:03 Just curious kind of where you're primarily focused on deploying cash and using your strong balance sheet. Is it going to be tuck in acquisitions? Is it going to be more so focused on further campus expansion initiatives? Any added color would be helpful. Yes. 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 APEI or the Military Plus division. That's somewhat to offset the near term headwind from the war in The Middle East.

32:53 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 impact, but perhaps late twenty twenty six 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.

33:43 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 Thanks, Griffin. Appreciate it. And our next question comes from the line of Stephen 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 twenty twenty five. It seems like that'd be more like 8% in the first half, excluding graduate school USA.

34:32 So is that mostly reflecting the slowdown in the certain military buckets you mentioned, the Navy, Air Force and Marines? And anything else to call out there beyond normal conservatism? Steven, thanks very much for the question. Are you specifically looking at the military plus division? Are you talking about overall guidance? Total company revenue guidance. Total company revenue guidance. Gary, do you want to take that? Yes. I mean, 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 4Q twenty twenty five and then taking out graduate school USA in first half of this year, so trying to compare it on a pure basis?

35:33 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 and 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, I'll call it, 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 moderating in the second half and then seeing what the impact is of the deployments and then also trying to understand what the year over year comp would be absent the shutdown from last year.

36:33 Okay. Got it. Yes. Dig in more if you guys are offline. Following up, 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 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 health care, including nursing, which and there's a lot of obviously favorable secular trends there that could make it a very 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 programs.

37:23 We 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 three point five 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 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.

38:11 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 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 East Coast for right now. So we're looking at states where we currently don't have a license.

39:14 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 imbalance in that state and if we can accelerate our entry into 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 several of those opportunities in one failed flip, we would certainly be interested in that as well. But we're not ruling out anything that fits within the larger criteria, take the state that we're interested in and the supply demand imbalance in health care are the the two primary criteria.

40:00 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 reenroll? And also, guess within your guidance, I guess what are you assuming for either a rebound or timing for those sort of enrollments? Luke, thanks for the question. So we 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.

40:46 But we will try and run that down and see if we can get more detail on that. 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.

41:42 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. Thank you, Duke. And our next question comes from the line of Eric Martinuzzi with Lake Street Capital Markets. Your line is open. Yes. 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 your first evidence of the of active duty headwinds, was that with your May start or with your April starts?

42:29 And did you see a difference between the two? Yes. 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 28. But we started to see the accommodation request 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 starts. Gary, do want to add to that? No, 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 looked a little bit light, but not compared to what we've seen. We've seen good growth rates, but it was typically what we saw the numbers that were lower than what we expected coming in from the branches that were on the front lines of the deployment.

43:48 Okay. And then the second part is that 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 Andrew 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 the deployments going forward. It's unknown what happens from here. I don't want get too far ahead of ourselves not knowing 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 teens 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.

45:14 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? Historically, there's been a certain number of deployments for every 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, 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 how do you see this particular deployment impacting the registration? And also I have a follow I have a question on, I mean, do you how would you allocate the marketing dollars to offset this impact? And is this and is that related to the margin?

46:28 I have a follow on question on the margins in military. Sorry, too many questions. 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 5,000 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. Typically, students in any given quarter are taking about two registrations, one to two registrations.

47:13 So you'd have to multiply that by, say, 1.5, 1.6, right? And I think that that then really points the difference between mid to high single digit registrations and mid single digit registrations. So we're kind of triangulating this on several different measures, and that's another measure that I appreciate you're bringing up. So yes, we really believe that when we can redirect the marketing dollars that we talked about, 2,200,000 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.

48:04 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 investing that $2,200,000 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 enrollment on targets that we set out for APEI. 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 APEI.

48:53 Got it. That's super helpful. And so I have a related question on 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, right. We don't great margin improvement, but we don't expect to sustain that throughout the year. And part of the reason is that incremental $2,200,000 Having said that, we're still guiding for the full year in the neighborhood of that 15% EBITDA margin, which would have been an improvement over last year's 13.2%.

49:47 Perfect. And then just following through to the Nursing, there's an improvement in the margins there, sequentially but there's a drop sequentially from Q4. Is that I wanted to understand, is that because nursing is kind of close to breakeven, so it's tough to kind of figure out how to scale that up quarter to quarter and get a consistent margin increase? That's largely mean, it's a good question. So if you recall last year, in Q1, we had timing between Q1 and Q2 of instructional materials.

50:33 So there's roughly $2,800,000 of instructional materials last year that didn't exist as we rolled out new materials and then modified the margin in Q2. So it's really just the timing. It's just really the differences year over year of that $2,800,000 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 had expected to be and we would expect to see the flow through margins much better in Q2 through Q4 for the remainder of the year.

51:20 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 twenty twenty five. Got it. And then just if I can ask one last question. Just can you comment on the sensitivity of the Department of Education, 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?

52:07 Yes. 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, 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 be 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.

53:01 Awesome. Thank you so much and congratulations again on solid consistent results. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Raj. Thank you. Thank you. And our final question comes from the line of Jasper Bibb with Truist Securities. Your line is open. Hey, good afternoon, everyone. I'll just keep it to one. Was hoping you could talk about how you're approaching student acquisition. I guess some of your competitors talk 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.

53:51 Yes. 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. So we're very positive about the continued momentum at APEI. Have not seen a slowdown in our acquisition of new nursing students.

54:38 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. Yes. Will say that, as Andrew pointed out, so a 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 put deployed resources to what others. We haven't seen a material impact because the other portions of our business are growing as we would expect.

55:32 But it's something that we do, we have to address just like everyone else is feel comfortable we understand what the root causes are and what we need to do to 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 Seldon 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 in expansion of our earnings per share contribution.

56:27 So thank you to each of you for joining us today, and 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.