Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. My name is Saurav, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the American Public Education, Inc. Reports Second Quarter 2020 Results Conference Call.

[Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the call over to Ryan Koren, AVP of Investor Relations and Corporate Development. You may now go ahead..

Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to American Public Education's conference call to discuss second quarter 2023 financial and operating results.

Joining me on the call today are Angela Selden, President and Chief Executive Officer; Rick Sunderland, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Steve Somers, Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy and Corporate Development Officer.

Materials for the call today are available under the Events and Presentations section of the APEI website.

Statements made during this conference call and any accompanying presentation regarding APEI and its subsidiaries that are not historical facts may be forward-looking statements based on current expectations, assumptions, estimates and projections.

Forward-looking statements may sometimes be identified by words like anticipate, believe, seek, could, estimate, expect, can, may, plan, should, will, would and similar or opposite words.

Forward-looking statements include, without limitation, statements regarding expectations for registrations and enrollments, revenue, earnings and EBITDA and other earnings guidance; initiatives to improve NCLEX pass rates and reposition Rasmussen University for growth and other company initiatives, including with respect to leadership changes, future competition and demand and our cost savings efforts.

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.

These include, among others, our dependence on the effectiveness of our ability to attract students who persist and are likely to succeed; our inability to effectively market for our programs or expand into new markets; the reduction, elimination, suspension or disruption of tuition assistance; changing market demands; economic and market conditions; our inability to meet regulatory and creditor requirements and the impacts thereof; challenges with acquisitions; our inability to meet our cost savings goals; risks related to our debt and preferred stock; and risks described in our presentation, today's press release, our Form 10-K for 2022, our Form 10-Q filed today and other SEC filings.

The company undertakes no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements for any reason unless required by law. This presentation contains references to non-GAAP financial information.

A reconciliation between the non-GAAP financial measures we use and the most directly comparable GAAP measures is located in the Appendix to our presentation and in our earnings release.

Management believes that our presentation of non-GAAP financial information provides useful supplemental information to investors regarding our results of operations and should only be considered in addition to and not as a substitute for or superior to any measure of financial performance prepared in accordance with GAAP.

I would now like to turn the call over to our CEO, Angela Selden. Angie, please go ahead..

Rasmussen Online and Rasmussen Campuses. This was done to provide more visibility to the sustainable growth and profitability initiatives for the fully online programs and the campus-based nursing and allied health programs.

It was also done to dedicate more resources to improving student educational experiences, specifically for the campus-based nursing programs through our Center for Educational Readiness to improve student mastery and increase NCLEX first-time pass rates. And finally, we did the reorganization into two divisions to reduce operating costs.

In 3Q 2023, total new student starts are positive year-over-year at Rasmussen, driven by improved marketing to increase enrollment. Rasmussen Online student enrollment has increased on a year-over-year basis for the fourth consecutive quarter.

And additionally, Rasmussen saw a 14% increase in new student starts in third quarter 2023 in campus-based non-ADN nursing and allied health programs.

Due to tightened admissions policies across all campuses, and enrollment caps in Illinois and the Twin Cities, we are still experiencing declining enrollment for Rasmussen's campus-based ADN nursing programs. Next, as I shared a few minutes ago, NCLEX scores meaningfully improved in 2Q 2023.

Starting first with Minnesota, all four Twin Cities ADN campuses improved on a year-over-year basis and the remaining three outstate programs surpassed the state threshold. Our two Kansas campuses have also seen strong NCLEX results for both the ADN and BSN programs, both exceeding the state standards.

In Florida, three of five campuses met the state standard. And in Illinois, while the campuses fell short of the state benchmark, we saw a significant improvement. We continue to provide all students with the resources both on-campus and remotely to properly prepare for their respective NCLEX exam through our Center for Nursing Excellence.

Before turning the call over to Rick Sunderland to review our second quarter results and third quarter outlook in more detail, I'd like to comment more broadly on our outlook regarding Rasmussen, specifically in nursing education generally.

We continue to believe, both based on strong secular trends and Hondros' enrollment momentum, that pre-licensure nursing education remains a promising long-term market for enrollment growth.

Those secular trends for nursing education include a projected chronic shortage of nurses in the United States, with close to 250,000 annual openings over the next decade. This shortage was exacerbated by the stresses placed on the nursing community due to the pandemic, which has precipitated more exits and early retirements from the nursing field.

With 22 campuses focused on educating new nurses, we believe Rasmussen remains positioned to help address this chronic need and educate more new nurses to join the workforce. We are optimistic about Rasmussen's role in the nursing and allied health ecosystem, and we remain committed to its mission to students, faculty and staff.

With that, let me hand the call over to our CFO, Rick Sunderland..

APUS total net course registrations are expected to be in the range of plus 6% to plus 8% or a registration range of 90,500 registrations to 92,500 registrations. At Rasmussen and Hondros, third quarter student enrollments are actual because of the quarterly starts at these schools.

At Rasmussen, third quarter total non-nursing enrollment increased 5% to approximately 7,700 students, while total nursing student enrollment decreased 25% year-over-year to approximately 5,700 students for an aggregate Rasmussen enrollment decline of approximately 10% year-over-year to approximately 13,500 students.

At Hondros, third quarter total student enrollment increased by 17% year-over-year to approximately 2,800 students. In the third quarter of 2023, consolidated revenue is expected to be between $148.3 million to $150.3 million.

The company expects the net loss to common shareholders to be between a loss of $5.7 million and a loss of $4.3 million and the loss per diluted share of a loss of $0.32 to a loss of $0.24 per diluted share. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be between $8.4 million and $10.4 million for the third quarter of 2023.

With that, operator, we would like to open the line for questions..

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Jasper Bibb with Truist Securities. Your line is now open..

Hey, good afternoon every one. Just wanted to follow up on the impairment charge. So I think earlier you mentioned that the new Rasmussen leadership might be thinking that the recovery there is going to be longer than previously anticipated.

How should investors think about, I guess, your updated time line to return Rasmussen to enrollment growth and profitability?.

We see positive momentum in enrollment, particularly at Rasmussen Online, moving the overall enrollment trend to positive..

Okay. And then -- but as a whole, including the Nursing business, do you have any kind of time line for when the decline there might start to level off or -- because I think that's probably the main contributor as far as an operating leverage perspective..

Jasper, it's Angie. Thanks for the question. We, as you probably saw in the PowerPoint materials, have seen a quarter-over-quarter sequential improvement in the enrollment as a percentage of the prior year period. And so we -- while we can't say one data point makes a trend, we do believe that there is stabilization in the Rasmussen business.

As Rick mentioned, we have seen not only a fourth quarter now of our online enrollment growth being positive, but also a 14% increase in the non-ADN nursing starts.

And that is really a deliberate strategy on the Rasmussen team's part to direct marketing dollars towards campus-based programs that are available to enroll students in and allow us to continue to fill the campuses and drive profitability from the campuses without having to exclusively rely on the ADN/RN program as was the case in the past.

So we can't yet put a pin on when we see the nursing enrollment at Rasmussen flatten out and become positive, but we do see really important signals enrollment momentum across those other categories and really importantly, the improvement in our NCLEX pass -- first-time pass rates, which will also signal to prospective students the strength of the Rasmussen, both ADN as well as LPN and BSN nursing programs..

Okay. And then just on the third quarter guidance, like how should we think about the underlying margin assumptions for the main portfolio schools there? You cited the really strong margins in APUS this quarter.

Is that going to be the primary driver of, I guess, the upside that was there?.

Yes, that's exactly right, Jasper..

Okay. And then just one more on Rasmussen. On the note in the 10-Q about the Bloomington accreditation review.

How should we think about the time line there to resolve that and what that could mean for the Rasmussen segment?.

Specifically, the Rasmussen leadership team is engaging with those different regulatory and licensing bodies in the state of Minnesota.

And we believe that we will be able to continue the dialogue with those different governing bodies to be able to come to a resolution that we believe will allow us, not only to continue to grow the BSN program, which has really tremendous NCLEX pass rates, but also to continue to moderate the enrollments in the Twin Cities campuses around the ADN program, which has been the primary focus of the -- of those governing bodies' attention to the results from our ADN program.

So it's limited to the four Twin Cities campuses, which already have quarterly enrollment caps that we have already seen a really meaningful part of enrollment decline taking place because of the enrollment caps that we have imposed on those campuses over the last four quarters..

Right. That makes sense. Last question for me.

Any update on APUS and compliance with the revised 90/10 threshold there for this fiscal year?.

Yes. Jasper, it's Rick. Yes, we've talked about this over several calls and everyone is aware that the change in the role in January, adding TA/VA moved APUS closer to the 90% threshold. We continue to work the initiatives that we've previously discussed, B2B employee reimbursement.

I don't know if we've talked about international as a particular initiative, but we have some beginnings in that arena also. All designed to improve the 10% ratio..

Okay. Appreciate the detail there. Thanks for taking the questions..

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Alex Paris with Barrington Research. Your line is now open..

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my question. I have a couple, but sort of in reverse order. In your response to the 90/10 question just asked.

I haven't looked at your Q yet, but what was the 90/10 of APUS in 2022 under the previous methodology? I think you probably disclosed that in the 10-Q, right?.

It was in the 10-K, Alex. You're talking about the prior year? Yes, a different basis, it was at 38%..

Okay.

And roughly, what percentage of students at APUS are military or veteran?.

Well, you can look at the concentration note in the financials. Of course, that's on an accrual basis, and the 90/10 calculation is done on a cash basis. I think, Alex, we routinely say that for new students, they self-identify as active duty military, it's something like 65%..

And what's your -- so under the new methodology, that will be for fiscal years completed in 2023. So next year's 10-K will have a different basis for calculating that.

Are you comfortable, given your exposure, given your initiatives that you'll come in underneath those targets?.

We have a good team at APUS, Alex, who know how to work the various channels, including the channels that deliver on the 10% side of the equation..

Great.

And is there any value to like bringing in Graduate School USA underneath APUS to give you more 10 revenue for that calculation? Is that something you could do or would consider doing?.

Alex, we certainly looked at that. Graduate School is a training company, adult learning company that provides courses to the federal workforce. And so those most typically end up being federal dollars.

And when you look at the new rules, the definitions are very broad as to what constitutes a federal dollar, thus, placing those dollars in the 90 side of the calculation..

Got you. All right. That's a good answer. Moving to my primary question though, I want to congratulate you on the improving NCLEX scores, particularly in the Twin Cities and Illinois, where the issue was most profound.

What have you done there to improve NCLEX scores over the year-to-date period or over the last 12 months?.

One, what we call the Center for Educational Readiness. And that was really making sure that the necessary faculty and clinicals were available at the time the students needed them to complete their hands-on learning experience.

And then the second was to operationalize our Center for Nursing Excellence, which really takes each student one by one, identifies where their learning gaps are and purpose-build learning experiences, either remediation tools or remediation course work, one-on-one tutoring, whatever it takes to help those students be able to overcome those shortcomings in their learning experience.

And so we think having focused on both the overall learning environment and experience, creating a better learning environment through more predictable clinicals. And at the same time, tailoring the remediation experience for the students has led to those improvements..

Great. That’s helpful. I guess that the only – those are my question for now. Thank you very much and I’ll get back in the queue..

Thank you, Alex..

There are no further questions at this time. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect..