EDGAR 10-K Filing

Company CIK: 1046568
Filing Year: 2023
Filename: 1046568_10-K_2023_0000950170-23-004119.json

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ITEM 1. BUSINESS
ITEM 1. BUSINESS
OVERVIEW
Perdoceo’s accredited academic institutions offer a quality postsecondary education primarily online to a diverse student population, along with campus-based and blended learning programs. The Company’s academic institutions - Colorado Technical University (“CTU”) and the American InterContinental University System (“AIUS” or “AIU System”) - provide degree programs from the associate through doctoral level as well as non-degree seeking and professional development programs. Our academic institutions offer students industry-relevant and career-focused academic programs that are designed to meet the educational needs of today’s busy adults. CTU and AIUS continue to show innovation in higher education, advancing personalized learning technologies like their intellipath® learning platform and using data analytics and technology to serve and educate students while enhancing overall learning and academic experiences. Perdoceo is committed to providing quality education that closes the gap between learners who seek to advance their careers and employers needing a qualified workforce.
When used in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, the terms “we,” “us,” “our,” “the Company,” “Perdoceo” and “PEC” refer to Perdoceo Education Corporation and our wholly-owned subsidiaries.
Our reporting segments correspond to our accredited institutions.
CTU
CTU is committed to providing quality and industry-relevant higher education to a diverse student population through innovative technology and experienced faculty, enabling the pursuit of personal and professional goals. CTU is focused on serving adult, non-traditional students seeking career advancement, as well as addressing employer’s needs for a well-educated workforce. CTU offers academic programs in the career-oriented disciplines of business and management, nursing, healthcare management, computer science, engineering, information systems and technology, project management, cybersecurity and criminal justice. Additionally, CTU also offers non-degree and professional development programs.
CTU has continued to expand its offerings in the areas of computer programming and technology providing for upskilling and reskilling opportunities, through the acquisition of Coding Dojo (the “Coding Dojo Acquisition”) on December 1, 2022. Coding Dojo provides learning and developmental preparation opportunities to technology-driven students with a quality technology platform and market demand course offering content which include software development, data science and cybersecurity. Results of operations related to the Coding Dojo acquisition are included in the consolidated financial statements within the CTU segment from the date of acquisition. See Note 3 “Business Acquisitions” in our consolidated financial statements for further information.
Discussion of business operations, trends and key drivers of operating results will primarily focus on CTU’s degree programs, which represent a majority of CTU’s operations and the CTU segment. Specific references will be made to the 2022 and 2021 acquisitions when material to the disclosure or necessary to understand the overall discussion.
AIUS
AIUS is committed to providing quality and accessible higher education opportunities for a diverse student population, including adult and other non-traditional learners and the military community. AIUS places emphasis on the educational, professional and personal growth of each student. AIUS offers academic programs in the career-oriented disciplines of business studies, information technologies, education, health sciences and criminal justice. AIUS also provides non-degree and professional development programs.
On July 1, 2022, the Company acquired substantially all of the assets of California Southern University (“CalSouthern” and the "CalSouthern Acquisition"), an accredited university offering online undergraduate, master’s and doctoral programs with a focus on
behavioral science. Results of operations related to the CalSouthern acquisition are included in the consolidated financial statements within the AIUS segment from the date of acquisition.
AIUS is comprised of three universities: the American InterContinental University ("AIU"), Trident University International (“Trident” or “TUI”) and CalSouthern. The AIUS structure provides a framework for all three universities to continue to serve their unique student populations while benefitting from one university system. Although all universities operate under a shared governance structure and have a common mission, the system structure allows each to retain its name and customize its programs and instructional and student service models to the needs of its unique student populations.
Discussion of business operations, trends and key drivers of operating results will primarily focus on AIU, which represents a majority of the AIU System and AIUS reporting segment. Specific references will be made to the recent acquisitions when material to the disclosure or necessary to understand the overall discussion.
Student Enrollments Statistics
Total student enrollments as of December 31, 2022 and 2021 were approximately 39,200 students and 40,400 students, respectively, with approximately 97% enrolled in our institutions’ fully-online academic programs for the year ended December 31, 2022 and approximately 96% for the year ended December 31, 2021. Substantially all of the students attending our institutions reside within the United States of America. Total student enrollments and student enrollment statistics stated above and presented below do not include learners participating in: a) non-degree and professional development programs, and b) degree seeking, non-Title IV, self-paced programs at our universities. Additional student enrollment demographic information for our institutions as of December 31, 2022 and 2021 was as follows:
Student Enrollments by Age Group
As a Percentage of Total
Student Enrollments as of
December 31,
Over 30
%
%
21 to 30
%
%
Under 21
%
%
Student Enrollments by Core Curricula
As a Percentage of Total
Student Enrollments as of
December 31,
Business Studies
%
%
Information Technology
%
%
Health Education
%
%
Student Enrollments by Degree Granting Program
As a Percentage of Total
Student Enrollments as of
December 31,
Doctoral and Master's Degree
%
%
Bachelor's Degree
%
%
Associate Degree
%
%
GUIDING PRINCIPLES AND STRATEGIC PRIORITIES
To compete successfully in today’s demanding economy, people benefit from higher education that provides a foundation of knowledge and skills they can use in the workplace and to build meaningful careers. We aim to become a leading provider of online postsecondary education to non-traditional students, including adult learners. The core guiding principles we focus on in our pursuit of this goal are:
•enhancing academic outcomes;
•improving academic quality and integrity; and
•complying with regulations.
Our strategic priorities that we believe will support our goal to become a leading provider of online postsecondary education to non-traditional students and position the company for long-term sustainable and responsible growth are:
•enhance student enrollment processes;
•enhance student experiences and retention;
•use technology as a differentiator;
•leverage efficient and effective scalable shared services to support organic growth at our universities and as a key enabler for inorganic growth strategies; and
•invest in student-serving processes that support our overall academic operations.
OUR BUSINESS
Through our two accredited academic institutions, we offer a quality postsecondary education primarily online to a diverse student population, along with campus-based and blended learning programs. We pursue a student-first mindset in our efforts to provide student support throughout the academic life cycle, from enrollment and orientation through ongoing coaching and learning leading up to graduation, which we believe enhances overall student learning experiences and academic outcomes. We are committed to investing in our academic institutions and student support technology, which we believe enables our student support teams to provide customized service that contributes to positive student experiences. Technology is a key enabler for us and we are continuing to expand the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning to additional areas of the student academic life cycle. We believe that our technology innovations provide students with tools that enable them to focus on educational content in a manner that is best suited to their personal learning style.
Marketing, Student Recruitment and the Student Enrollment Process
Our universities seek motivated students with both the desire and ability to complete their academic programs of choice. To promote interest among potential students, our universities develop and engage in a variety of marketing activities which build awareness of our universities among prospective students. Our marketing programs are designed to enhance each university’s opportunity to serve those students who have a greater propensity to begin and eventually complete their degree of choice at one of our academic institutions.
Perdoceo primarily serves a non-traditional and diverse student population. Our students have a broad range of educational and employment experiences which contributes to their college-level readiness. Each of our universities has an admissions function responsible for interacting with prospective students interested in applying to an institution after they have expressed interest in learning more about our academic institutions and programs. Generally, to be qualified for admission to one of our universities, an applicant must have received a high school diploma or a recognized equivalent, such as a General Education Development certificate. Some of our programs may also require applicants to meet specific program admissions requirements.
We use data analytics to help us identify and focus on prospective students who are more likely to succeed at one of our universities. Our prospective student outreach process uses technology to provide a more customized approach to enable us to more effectively provide prospective students with relevant information to help them make more informed academic decisions.
One of our technology initiatives over the last few years to expand the use of artificial intelligence (“AI”) and machine learning throughout the academic life cycle is AI-based virtual assistant “chatbots” that we have named Lucy at AIU and Rosie at CTU. Both Lucy and Rosie have streamlined the process for prospective students who want to learn about our institutions and can address approximately 92% of their questions while continuing to learn from her interactions. If these chatbots are unable to address a question, the prospective student is referred to our admissions personnel for additional assistance. Throughout 2022, we continued to expand the use of chatbots across different aspects of the academic life cycle at both CTU and AIU.
Our technology enhancements enable our admissions staff to customize their prospective student outreach and engagement strategies based on students’ prior educational experience, degree and areas of program interest, thus providing a more meaningful and relevant interaction with the prospective student. We believe prospective students have an improved overall experience in communications with our admissions personnel due to these enhancements.
Admissions advisors serve as one of the prospective students’ primary contacts, providing information to help them make informed enrollment decisions and assisting them with the completion of the enrollment process. The admissions advisors also have a responsibility to provide guidance and support through the enrollment application process and student orientation as well as assist each student as they transition into their first class.
Once a decision has been made to enroll at one of our academic institutions, the financial aid team works with the prospective student, providing them with information about various loans and grants available to finance their education. The focus is on getting these students financially prepared for school in a timely manner so that they can focus on their academic activities.
Every enrolled student is offered an orientation that is designed to prepare them to begin classes at our institutions. This orientation process also provides the opportunity for students to understand our academic and support services. We believe completion of these activities better prepares a student to make an informed decision about pursuing their education as well as to be more successful as it simulates their classroom experience both online and in a campus-based environment. Completion of orientation does not financially obligate students, nor does it require students to continue their education with the university.
Additionally, new students who attend online programs at our universities and do not want to continue have 21 days after the start of their program to notify the university of their intention to withdraw. Students who notify and withdraw from the university within 21 days will not be responsible for any tuition-related expenses and are refunded any amounts they have paid in tuition and other institutional fees.
Corporate Partnerships
Our universities have focused on expanding strategic relationships with corporate partners. During 2022, we continued to focus on and invest in our corporate partnership program at both institutions and our teams are successfully engaging with employers who provide tuition assistance programs which allows for a debt-free education to their employees. We expect these relationships to result in new student interest through increased awareness of our institutions for the employees of our corporate partners. Corporate partnerships provide us with an opportunity to connect with and educate a population of students we would otherwise not likely have access to. Students who attend our institutions through corporate partnerships are awarded grants from the applicable university to partially offset their tuition costs, the amount of which depends on the agreement with each respective corporate partner. In addition, they typically receive some funding from their employer towards their tuition. Although the amount paid by these students results in lower revenue per student due to the grants awarded from the applicable university, the recruiting, marketing and support costs associated with these students are lower as well. Further, these students are more likely to start class and tend to be more persistent in their pursuit of long-term learning, which we believe will result in higher life-time value per student. As of December 31, 2022, approximately 23.9% and 5.2% of total student enrollments at CTU and AIUS, respectively, are a result of corporate partnership agreements.
Student Retention and Academic Outcomes
Our institutions focus on improving student retention and enhancing academic outcomes. Investments in student serving processes, including the use of technology, is a key focus to support these efforts. Our faculty and student advisors provide frequent assistance and feedback to students during their course of academic study. We support increased communication between our faculty and students by providing faculty with various technology enablers such as a two-way messaging platform and enhanced data reporting and analytics to help them provide meaningful academic support and information. As is the case at any postsecondary educational institution, a portion of our students withdraw from their academic programs for a variety of academic, financial or personal reasons, and these efforts are designed to help our students remain in school and succeed in their academic program.
Our student advising model promotes collaboration between faculty and student advisors, which we believe enhances effectiveness and provides students with consistent support and communication. Student advisors continue to work with students throughout their academic program to provide relevant and specific feedback and guidance as they progress through their classes. Additionally, a team of staff members from advising, admissions and financial aid work directly with each new student creating a student-service atmosphere and encouraging quality interactions.
Coupled with the student advising model, our academic institutions continually review course content, pairing and sequencing to ensure workload levels build gradually as students develop skills and acclimate to course expectations which we believe improves academic outcomes. Courses have been redesigned to accommodate skill development holistically, which we believe will support progressive learning.
AIU’s student-centric framework focuses on having students interact with their admissions advisor from enrollment through the end of their first academic session and be subsequently supported by faculty and student advisors. We believe this structure improves overall student experiences and retention. This cross-functional strategy is aimed at improving student engagement throughout the student’s academic life cycle, with particular emphasis on the important onboarding phase and first academic term as the students adjust to their academic program.
CTU leverages data analytics to provide proactive outreach and personalized advising to improve student retention and academic outcomes. This approach is intended to help us reach the right student at the right time with the right support, which we expect will increase learning and course completion by our students. We continue to refine our data analytics process to enable our student advisors to be more effective in their student engagement efforts.
Program Development
Our universities develop and deliver a variety of programs primarily resulting in the award of credentials ranging from certificates to doctoral degrees in career-oriented programs of study in core curricula areas of business studies, information technology and health education.
Our curricula, instructional delivery tools, and experienced faculty comprise the learning experience that provides our student population with a unique opportunity to develop the knowledge, skills and competencies required for specific careers. The curriculum development process focuses on desired career needs, while considering relative competencies necessary to achieve these career needs, as well as any applicable recommendations set forth by advisory boards, programmatic accrediting agencies and industry standards. Subsequently, learning objectives are identified and courses are developed which foster student engagement in activities and optimally result in the attainment of program learning outcomes.
Over the past two years, our institutions have continued the expansion of their offerings with the acquisition of non-degree professional development programs. These online courses offer upskilling and reskilling opportunities where one can develop skills and knowledge in a specific endeavor or area of interest.
Instructional Delivery
Our instructional delivery for our degree programs is based on the belief that learning depends on instructional methodologies that facilitate student engagement with the instructor, with other students, and with the course content. This engagement is fundamental to student learning outcomes, regardless of whether instruction occurs within a physical or virtual classroom. We continue to focus on innovation in our delivery of online education to enhance the learning experience for students.
During 2022, we continued a multi-year project to enhance and upgrade our student technology infrastructure. This includes several upgrades to our mobile platforms and virtual campus and a redesign of our digital toolsets and technology that our faculty and student support teams utilize to serve and educate students throughout their academic life cycle. These upgrades are expected to further enhance student experiences, especially for our non-traditional adult learners, while driving efficiencies within the business.
Learning Management System
Construction of, and ongoing enhancement to, a virtual campus that engages online students with their instructor, peers and content is critical to the achievement of student learning outcomes. CTU and AIU’s online instructional delivery is accomplished using an innovative, student-focused learning management system. While online content delivery is very common today, our course content delivery system has several features that make it distinctive. Designed around students, our course content delivery system is a rich, engaging student experience that represents an innovative online method of delivering content.
Perdoceo has implemented the use of sophisticated personalized learning technologies through our virtual campus that provides intelligent, adaptive systems to power the delivery of personalized learning. We have a perpetual license to this technology and our personalized learning content was developed by teams of our own instructors and has been integrated across many of our curricula.
Mobile Applications
Students at CTU and AIU have access to a mobile application and two-way messaging platform which were created to complement students’ mobile-centric lives. During 2022, we have upgraded our mobile technology framework allowing for better performance and increased stability. Approximately 96% of our students within these universities have opted in for the mobile application and to receive mobile notifications. Our students and staff are using the messenger due to its ease and simplicity. The student benefits of these technology innovations include the ability to connect with their university in a different way, communicate efficiently with faculty, upload required documentation, track grades and degree progress in real-time and participate in courses from the palm of their hand, all of which contribute to increased student engagement. CTU and AIU also have a faculty mobile application which provides informative dashboards, ability to complete tasks on the go and enhanced outreach and communication capabilities that we believe make teacher-student interactions easier and more effective.
Faculty
Our institutions employ approximately 2,100 credentialed, geographically dispersed, full-time and adjunct (i.e., part-time) faculty who facilitate learning in our classrooms and virtual classrooms. Our faculty are hired, assigned, developed and evaluated in accordance with current accepted higher education practices and in accordance with state, institutional accreditation and programmatic accreditation standards. Generally, our institutions require the instructor for any degree program courses to have a degree at least one level higher than the level of the course being taught (with the exception of faculty in our doctoral programs) plus teaching and/or industry experience. General education faculty members must possess at least a master’s degree. The average tenure of a Perdoceo faculty member is approximately six years. We believe the longevity of our instructors is a testament to the focus we place on student learning and the consistent quality we strive for in our classrooms.
Faculty Competencies
With the input of faculty and academic leadership at our universities, we have developed a set of instructor competencies that we believe are critical to student success and institutional effectiveness. These competencies provide the basis for faculty recruitment, hiring, orientation, evaluation and development. Faculty hired by our academic institutions are evaluated for proficiency in the following competencies:
•communication;
•assessment of student learning;
•instructional methodology (pedagogy);
•subject matter expertise;
•utilization of technology to enhance teaching and learning;
•acknowledgement and accommodation of diversity in learners;
•student engagement;
•promotion of active student learning;
•compliance with academic institution policy; and
•demonstration of scholarship.
Seasonality and Fluctuations in Results
Our quarterly net revenues and income may fluctuate primarily as a result of the pattern of student enrollments. As a result, changes in the academic calendar may have an impact on quarterly comparability as each quarter may have non-comparable revenue-earning days because the academic calendar may align differently with each calendar year and the quarters therein. While operating costs for our institutions generally do not fluctuate significantly on a quarterly basis, we do traditionally increase our marketing investments during the first and third quarters in relation to the traditional back to school seasons.
Human Capital
As of December 31, 2022, we had approximately 4,500 employees, of which approximately 1,900 work for CTU and approximately 1,700 work for AIUS, with the remainder being corporate-level employees in areas such as marketing, information technology, financial aid, accounting, human resources, legal and compliance. Our employees include approximately 2,000 part-time adjunct faculty members and approximately 120 full-time faculty members. Other than our part-time adjunct faculty members, we have less than 100 part-time employees, some of which are student employees under the federal work study program.
The human capital objectives that we focus on reflect the nature of our business, our regulated industry and our guiding principles and strategic priorities discussed above under the heading “Guiding Principles and Strategic Priorities.”
We focus on achieving results in a compliant and ethical manner. New employees in student-serving functions such as admissions and financial aid participate in multi-week training programs and our compliance monitoring programs and other ongoing compliance efforts in these and other areas are robust. The Compliance and Risk Committee of our Board of Directors regularly reviews the results of our compliance monitoring programs and matters reported through the Company’s internal system for reporting compliance concerns in order to monitor the effectiveness of these programs.
We use technology to support students and enhance learning. Therefore, it is imperative that our employees in student-serving functions are trained to use our technology and systems for the benefit of our students. This includes our faculty members who must be proficient in using our online learning management system, personalized learning technology and mobile applications. We also focus significant human capital resources on protecting our technology infrastructure and the personal information maintained therein regarding applicants, our students, their families and our alumni. The Compliance and Risk Committee and the full Board of Directors regularly review information security matters given their importance to the Company.
Our goal is to deploy resources in the most effective and efficient manner that we believe will lead to increased stockholder value while supporting and enhancing the academic quality of our institutions. This philosophy applies to our human capital resources as well. Significant management attention is focused on where to add human capital and other resources to grow responsibly, while at the same time monitoring human capital costs and promoting operating efficiencies. Employee turnover impacts human capital costs and operating efficiencies and as a result we have in the past seen improved operating results associated with improved tenure within student-serving functions. The Audit Committee of our Board of Directors regularly reviews information about employee turnover within the Company.
We are committed to a policy of equal employment opportunity. We value diversity and strive to create an atmosphere that supports the students and communities that we serve. Inclusivity is important in our approach to achieving a dynamic culture. We are committed to fostering an environment where differences are respected and valued and where employees feel empowered to share their experiences and ideas. The self-identified ethnicity or race of our full-time employees, including full-time faculty members, is approximately 49% White, 30% Black or African American, 12% Hispanic, Latinx or Spanish origin, 7% Asian, 1% American Indian or Alaskan Native and 1% Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, and our full-time employees are approximately 37% male and 63% female. The self-identified ethnicity or race of our part-time non-student employees, who are primarily part-time adjunct faculty members, is approximately 62% White, 29% Black or African American, 4% Hispanic, Latinx or Spanish origin, 3% Asian, 1% American Indian or Alaskan Native and less than 1% Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, and our part-time employees are approximately 50% male and 50% female.
INDUSTRY BACKGROUND AND COMPETITION
The domestic postsecondary education industry is highly fragmented and competitive, with no one provider having a significant market share. The Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended and reauthorized (“Higher Education Act”), and the related regulations govern all higher education institutions participating in federal student aid and loan programs under Title IV of the Higher Education Act (“Title IV Programs”). According to the National Center for Education Statistics (“NCES”), there were approximately 5,800 postsecondary education institutions eligible for federal student aid in the United States for the academic year 2021-22, including approximately 2,200 for-profit schools; approximately 1,900 public schools which include state universities and community colleges; and approximately 1,700 private non-profit schools. According to the U.S. Department of Education (“ED” or the “Department”), over the 12-month period for academic year 2020-21, approximately 25.3 million students were enrolled in postsecondary institutions.
The domestic postsecondary degree-granting education industry was an approximately $695 billion industry for academic year 2019-20, according to a report published in 2022 by the Department. We compete in this industry primarily with other degree-granting regionally-accredited colleges and universities, both for-profit institutions like ours and public and private non-profit institutions. In particular, there is growing competition from online programs at these institutions as they increase their online offerings in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and growing prospective student interest.
Most postsecondary institutions, regardless of how they are organized, face significant challenges, including:
•a continued focus on the cost and availability of a college education;
•concerns over the high level of college student indebtedness;
•questions about the quality of academic programs and the ability to translate the value of a postsecondary education into economic mobility;
•competition from lower cost alternatives and from non-traditional competitors or new alternative educational paths; and
•the importance of preparing students with relevant skills to manage new and rapidly changing technologies and supporting employers in their efforts to optimize and advance their workforce.
Postsecondary institutions are also subject to significant regulations which provide for a regulatory triad by mandating specific regulatory responsibilities for the accrediting agencies recognized by the Department, the federal government through the Department, and state higher education regulatory bodies.
Extensive and increasingly complex Department regulations governing postsecondary institutions have been enacted, including regulations applicable only to for-profit institutions. These regulations, coupled with the increased focus by the U.S. Congress on the role that for-profit educational institutions play in higher education, as well as the evolving needs and objectives of students and employers, economic constraints affecting educational institutions and increased focus on affordability and value, may cause increased competition across the industry as well as contribute to continued changes in business operating strategies.
Although competition exists, for-profit educators serve a segment of the market for postsecondary education that we believe has not been fully addressed by traditional public and private universities. Public and private non-profit institutions can face limited financial resources to expand their offerings in response to growth or changes in the demand for education, due to a combination of state funding challenges, significant expenditures required for research and the professor tenure system. Institutions may also control student enrollments to preserve the perceived prestige and exclusivity of their degree offerings. For-profit providers of postsecondary education offer prospective students the greater flexibility and convenience of their institutions' programmatic offerings and learning structure and an emphasis on applied content and the use of technology in the delivery of the education. At the same time, the share of the postsecondary education market that has been captured by for-profit providers remains relatively small. As a result, we believe that in spite of regulatory and other challenges facing the industry, for-profit postsecondary education providers continue to have significant opportunities to address the demand for postsecondary education.
The majority of our degree-seeking students today have one or more non-traditional characteristics (e.g., did not enroll immediately after high school graduation, work full-time, are financially independent for purposes of financial aid eligibility, have dependents other than a spouse or are single parents). These non-traditional students typically are looking to improve their skills and enhance their earning potential within the context of their careers or in pursuit of new careers. As the industry has shifted to more students with non-traditional characteristics, an increasing proportion of colleges and universities are addressing the needs of working students. This includes colleges and universities with well-established brand names that were historically focused on traditional students.
ACCREDITATION, STATE REGULATION AND OTHER COMPLIANCE MATTERS
Institutional Accreditation
In the United States, accreditation is a process through which an institution subjects itself to qualitative review by an organization of peer institutions. Accrediting agencies primarily examine the academic quality of the instructional programs of an institution, and a grant of accreditation is generally viewed as confirmation that an institution’s programs meet generally accepted academic standards. Accrediting agencies also review the administrative and financial operations of the institutions they accredit to ensure that each institution has the resources to meet its educational mission.
Pursuant to provisions of the Higher Education Act, the Department relies on accrediting agencies to determine whether institutions’ educational programs qualify the institutions to participate in Title IV Programs. The Higher Education Act and its implementing regulations specify certain standards that all recognized accrediting agencies must adopt in connection with their review of postsecondary institutions.
Both CTU and AIUS are accredited by the Higher Learning Commission (“HLC”) (www.hlcommission.org), an institutional accrediting agency that is recognized by the Department. CTU’s next re-affirmation of accreditation is scheduled for 2023. CTU had a comprehensive evaluation in 2017, during which HLC found that CTU continued to meet HLC’s criteria for accreditation, while requesting that CTU complete some interim reporting prior to its next re-affirmation of accreditation review. CTU has submitted all requested interim reports. AIUS’ next re-affirmation of accreditation is scheduled for 2024. AIUS had a comprehensive evaluation in 2018, during which HLC found that AIUS continued to meet HLC’s criteria for accreditation.
Programmatic Accreditation
In addition to the institutional accreditation described above, CTU and AIUS have specialized programmatic accreditation for particular educational programs. Many states and professional associations require professional programs to be accredited at a program level, and require individuals who must sit for professional license exams to have graduated from accredited programs. Programmatic accreditation does not satisfy the Department requirements to confer Title IV Program eligibility; however, it does provide additional academic quality review by peers in a given field and may enable or assist graduates to practice, sit for licensing or certification exams (in some cases) or otherwise secure appropriate employment in their chosen field. In addition to programmatic accreditation, some states have licensing boards which regulate who in a state is licensed to practice in a given profession.
Our universities pursue programmatic accreditation if that accreditation is required by employers or licensing bodies in order for a graduate to practice the profession or if it is required in order for a graduate to sit for a licensing or certification exam in order to practice or advance in the profession. In most cases, programmatic accreditation is sought because it is desired by employers and may enhance the ability of our graduates to compete for employment in their field.
Programmatic accreditation has been granted by the following accrediting agencies for the following degree program areas offered by our institutions.
Programmatic Accreditation Table (1)
Accreditor
Campus
Program Area Accredited (2)
ABET
Colorado Technical University, Colorado Springs
Electrical engineering and computer engineering
Association for Advancing Quality in Education Preparation
AIUS/American InterContinental University, Chandler
Education
Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs
AIUS (all locations): American InterContinental University, California Southern University and Trident University International; Colorado Technical University (all locations)
Business
Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education
AIUS/California Southern University, Chandler; Colorado Technical University, Colorado Springs
Nursing
Project Management Institute Global Accreditation Center
Colorado Technical University (all locations)
Project management and business
_____________________
(1)Status as of February 23, 2023.
(2)See the institutional website for a list of programs included in the approval.
State Regulation
State approval agencies are responsible for the oversight of educational institutions, and continued approval by such agencies is necessary for an institution to operate and grant degrees or certificates to its students. State laws establish standards for, among other things, student instruction, qualifications of faculty, location and nature of facilities, and financial policies. State laws and regulations may limit our campuses’ ability to operate or to award degrees or certificates or offer new programs. Moreover, under the Higher Education Act and Department regulations, approval by such agencies is necessary to maintain eligibility to participate in Title IV Programs. Currently, each of our ground-based campuses is authorized by the state in which it is located. Additionally, our online
institutions have separate state approval or recognition from the relevant state agency via participation in a consortia program called the State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement (“SARA”) in the states in which they enroll and/or recruit students. California is the only state which is not a part of SARA; however, CTU and AIUS hold the appropriate approval in that state.
SARA is an agreement among member states, districts and U.S. territories that establishes comparable national standards for interstate offering of postsecondary distance education courses and programs. States, districts and territories apply to become members of SARA (which, in many cases, requires action by state legislators) and if accepted, institutions approved in their “home” state may apply to become participants in the SARA compact and the “home” state authorization is deemed acceptable to operate an online program in other states that also participate in SARA as long as they do not establish a “physical presence” in those other states (as defined by SARA). Forty-nine states plus the District of Columbia are SARA participants (www.nc-sara.org). CTU and AIUS are approved to participate in SARA by their home states (Colorado and Arizona, respectively).
In addition to state education regulations, there are other state agencies that oversee regulations related to student financing, payment servicing and general consumer protection. In some cases, state laws and regulations require us to register the volume of payment plans our students enter into and/or require licenses for our institutions to collect student payments for the educational services they deliver.
Other Compliance Matters
In recent years, states and federal agencies have increased their focus on the for-profit, postsecondary education sector. This includes increased activity by state attorneys general and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) in their review of the sector.
In this regard, on January 3, 2019, the Company entered into agreements with attorneys general from 48 states and the District of Columbia to bring closure to multi-state inquiries ongoing since January 2014. As part of the agreements, the Company expressly denied any allegations of wrongdoing but agreed to, among other things, work with a third-party administrator that will report on the Company's compliance with various obligations the Company committed to in the agreements. Operationally, the Company committed to:
•provide students with additional communication of important policies, academic program information and financial aid information during the enrollment process, including a single page program disclosure as well as disclosure of applicable refund policies;
•provide newly enrolling students an online financial aid interactive tool that can assist them in understanding their financial commitments;
•continue its existing practice of offering a no cost orientation and/or an introductory course with materials designed to support new college students (if they have less than 24 college credits); and
•permit undergraduate students to withdraw with no monetary obligation up to seven days after their first class at on-campus schools and up to 21 days after the start of the term at online programs (if they have less than 24 online college credits).
From a compliance standpoint, the Company committed to:
•continue many of its existing compliance programs that it uses to monitor for accurate communication with prospective students;
•continue its monitoring of third-party marketing vendors and agreed on a process to continue to hold them accountable for complying with the Company’s advertising guidelines;
•continue to monitor and review conversations that its admissions and financial aid staff have with prospective students during the student recruitment process; and
•enhance current training to staff working with students regarding the additional information and tools that are part of the commitments in the agreements.
Generally, the operational aspects we agreed to as part of the agreements with the attorneys general are for a six-year period. With respect to working with a third-party administrator, the Company voluntarily agreed to extend the engagement for an additional year beyond the initial three year period to enable the administrator to continue its review of the Company’s compliance program enhancements adopted over the initial period.
Further, on July 26, 2019, the Company executed a settlement agreement with the FTC to resolve an inquiry commenced by the FTC in 2015. While not admitting any wrongdoing, the Company chose to settle the FTC inquiry after almost four years of legal expenses and cooperating with the FTC’s investigation. Under the terms of the agreement with the FTC, the Company agreed to continue its compliance with the Federal Trade Commission Act and the Telemarketing and Consumer Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act, including compliance with the national do not call registry. The Company agreed to enhance its current operational and compliance processes with respect to prospective student expressions of interest, or “leads,” purchased from third party lead aggregators and generators and implement other agreed-upon compliance measures. Specifically, the agreement with the FTC requires the operation of a system to monitor third party lead aggregators and generators involving a compliance review by, or on behalf of, the Company of the various sources a prospective student interacts with prior to the Company’s purchase and use of the prospective student lead. In addition, the FTC Agreement contains requirements regarding employee and lead aggregator acknowledgements of
the agreement, compliance certifications and record creation and maintenance. The principal provisions of the agreement with the FTC will remain in effect for twenty years.
These agreements and an earlier agreement with the New York Attorney General have led to periodic requests for information to demonstrate continued compliance with the agreements and applicable regulations. Compiling data and other information in response to these and other requests from various state and federal agencies is costly and time consuming and any resulting claim of noncompliance may harm our reputation and business.
See Item 1A, “Risk Factors - Risks Related to the Highly Regulated Field in Which We Operate - Our agreements with multiple state attorneys general and the FTC may lead to unexpected impacts on our student enrollments or higher than anticipated expenses, a failure to comply may lead to additional enforcement actions and continued scrutiny may result in additional costs or new enforcement actions,” for more information about these agreements.
STUDENT FINANCIAL AID AND RELATED FEDERAL REGULATION
A majority of our students require assistance in financing their education. Our institutions are approved to participate in the U.S. Department of Education’s Title IV federal aid programs. Our institutions also participate in a number of state financial aid programs, tuition assistance programs of the United States Armed Forces and education benefits administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs (“VA”). Our institutions that participate in federal and state financial aid programs are subject to extensive and frequently changing regulatory requirements imposed by federal and state government agencies, and other standards imposed by educational accrediting bodies.
Nature of Federal Support for Postsecondary Education in the United States
The U.S. government provides a substantial portion of its support for postsecondary education in the form of Title IV Program grants, loans and work-study programs to students who can use those funds to finance certain education related expenses at any institution that has been approved to participate by the Department. These federal programs are authorized by the Higher Education Act. While most students are eligible for a Title IV loan, typically, financial aid administered under Title IV is awarded on the basis of financial need, which is generally defined under the Higher Education Act as the difference between the costs associated with attending an institution and the amount a student’s family can reasonably be expected to contribute based on a federally determined formula. Among other things, recipients of Title IV Program funds must maintain a satisfactory grade point average and progress in a timely manner toward completion of their program of study.
Students at our institutions may receive grants, loans and work-study opportunities to fund their education under the Title IV Programs described in the sections below. In addition, some students at our institutions receive education related benefits pursuant to certain programs for veterans and military personnel, the most significant of which are described further below.
Federal Student and Parent Loans
The Department’s major form of aid includes loans to students and parents through the William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan (“Direct Loan”) Program. Direct Loans are loans made directly by the U.S. Government to students or their parents. The Direct Loan program offers Federal Direct Stafford, Federal Direct PLUS (which provides loans to parents of dependent students and to graduate or professional students, known as Parent PLUS and Grad PLUS) and Federal Direct Consolidation Loans.
Undergraduate students who have demonstrated financial need may be eligible to receive a Direct Subsidized Loan, with the Department paying the interest on this loan while the student is enrolled at least half-time in school. Graduate and undergraduate students who do not demonstrate financial need may be eligible to receive a Direct Unsubsidized Loan. Graduate/professional students may only receive Direct Unsubsidized Loans. With Direct Unsubsidized Loans the student is responsible for the interest while in school and after leaving school, although actual interest payments generally may be deferred by the student until after he or she has left school. Students who are eligible for a Direct Subsidized Loan may also be eligible to receive a Direct Unsubsidized Loan.
A student is not required to meet any specific credit scoring criteria to receive a Direct Loan, but historically, any student with a default on a prior loan made under any Title IV Program may not be eligible for new loans unless the default has been cured through repayment progress. Through a student loan initiative announced by the current administration on April 6, 2022, students that had previously defaulted on a student loan are temporarily eligible for new loans which has increased interest from former students in returning to school. This initiative is scheduled to expire one year from the date that the pause in federal student loan payments is lifted. The Department has established maximum annual and aggregate borrowing limits for Direct Loans.
The Direct PLUS Loan Program provides loans to either the parents of dependent students or to graduate students. Parents and graduate students who have an acceptable credit history may borrow a Direct PLUS Loan to pay the education related expenses of a child who is a dependent or a graduate student enrolled at least half-time at our eligible institutions. The amount of a Direct PLUS Loan cannot exceed the student’s cost of attendance less all other financial aid received.
Federal Pell Grant and Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant
Title IV Program grants are generally made to our students under the Federal Pell Grant (“Pell Grant”) program and the Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant (“FSEOG”) program. The 2022-23 maximum annual Pell Grant is $6,895, excluding any additional amount awarded pursuant to a year-round Pell Grant. Beginning with the 2017-18 award year, eligible students may receive year-round Pell Grant funds. A year-round Pell Grant program allows students to receive up to 150% of the student’s regular award, allowing students to maintain their enrollment status and receive Pell Grant funds for up to two additional academic terms during an award year so that they can continue taking classes and work toward graduating more quickly. To be eligible for the additional Pell Grant funds, the student must be enrolled at least half-time in the payment period(s) for which the student receives the additional Pell Grant funds in excess of 100% of the student’s regular Pell Grant award.
The FSEOG program awards are designed to supplement Pell Grants up to a maximum amount of $4,000 per academic year for the neediest students. Our institutions are required to provide matching funding for FSEOG awards that represent not less than 25% of the total FSEOG award to be received by eligible students. The matching may be accomplished through institutional, private and/or state funds.
Federal Work-Study Program
Generally, under the federal work-study program, federal funds are used to pay 75% of the cost of part-time employment of eligible students to perform work for the institution or certain off-campus organizations. The remaining 25% is paid by the institution or the student’s employer. In select cases, these federal funds under the federal work-study program are used to pay up to 100% of the cost of part-time employment of eligible students.
Veterans Benefits Programs
Some of our students who are veterans use their benefits under the Montgomery GI Bill or the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2008, as amended (“Post-9/11 GI Bill”), to cover their tuition. A certain number of our students are also eligible to receive funds from other education assistance programs administered by the VA.
The Yellow Ribbon program under the Post-9/11 GI Bill expanded education benefits for veterans who have served on active duty on or after September 11, 2001, including reservists and members of the National Guard. As originally passed, the Post-9/11 GI Bill provided that eligible veterans could receive benefits for tuition purposes up to the cost of in-state tuition at the most expensive public institution of higher education in the state where the veteran was enrolled. In addition, veterans who were enrolled in classroom-based programs or “blended programs” (programs that combine classroom learning and distance learning) could receive monthly housing stipends, while veterans enrolled in wholly distance-based programs were not entitled to a monthly housing stipend. The provisions regarding education benefits for post-9/11 veterans took effect August 1, 2009. The Post-9/11 GI Bill also increased the amount of education benefits available to eligible veterans under the pre-existing Montgomery GI Bill. The legislation also authorized expansion of service members’ ability to transfer veterans’ education benefits to family members.
On January 4, 2011, the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Improvements Act of 2010 (“Improvements Act”) was adopted, which amends the Post-9/11 GI Bill in several respects. The Improvements Act alters the way benefits related to tuition and fees are calculated. For nonpublic U.S. institutions, the Improvements Act bases the benefits related to tuition and fees on the net cost to the student (after accounting for state and federal aid, scholarships, institutional aid, fee waivers, and similar assistance paid directly to the institution for the sole purpose of defraying tuition cost) rather than the charges established by the institution. The Improvements Act also replaced the state-dependent benefit cap with a single national cap which is adjusted annually and as of August 1, 2022 is $26,381. In addition, veterans pursuing a program of education solely through distance learning on a more than half-time basis are eligible to receive up to 50% of the national average of the basic housing allowance available to service members who are at military pay grade E-5 and have dependents. Most “Improvements Act” changes took effect on August 1 or October 1, 2011, though changes to rules regarding eligibility for benefits were effective immediately or retroactively to the effective date of the Post-9/11 GI Bill. The Improvements Act did not change the Post-9/11 GI Bill’s provision that allows veterans to receive up to $1,000 per academic year for books, supplies, equipment and other education costs.
U.S. Military Tuition Assistance
Service members of the United States Armed Forces are eligible to receive tuition assistance from their branch of service through the Uniform Tuition Assistance Program of the Department of Defense (“DoD”). Service members may use this tuition assistance to pursue postsecondary degrees at postsecondary institutions that are accredited by accrediting agencies that are recognized by the Department. Each branch of the armed forces has established its own rules for the tuition assistance programs of DoD.
In 2010, both the U.S. Congress and DoD increased their focus on DoD tuition assistance that is used for distance education and programs at for-profit institutions. The DoD Voluntary Education Partnership Memorandum of Understanding (“MOU”) was established as part of the revised DoD Instruction 1322.25, Voluntary Education Programs dated March 15, 2011. The DoD updated the MOU in 2014 and 2019, in each case with enhanced requirements for institutions. The MOU requires that participating institutions provide meaningful information to students about the financial cost and attendance at an institution so military students can make informed decisions on where to attend school, will not use unfair, deceptive, and abusive recruiting practices and will provide
academic and student support services to service members and their families. It contains requirements regarding the disclosures of costs and amounts covered by federal educational benefits, marketing standards, state authorization, accreditation approvals, standard institutional refund policies, educational plans and academic and financial advising. The MOU also incorporates the development and implementation of the “VA Shopping Sheet,” a standardized cost form with federal aid information which has evolved into what is now referred to by the Department as the “College Financing Plan”. The MOU conveys the commitments and agreements between the educational institution and DoD prior to accepting funds under the tuition assistance program. For example, the MOU requires an institution to agree to support DoD regulatory guidance, adhere to a bill of rights that is specified in the regulations, and participate in the proposed Military Voluntary Education Review program. Under the MOU, institutions must also agree to adhere to the principles and criteria established by the Service Members Opportunity Colleges Degree Network System regarding the transferability of credit and the awarding of credit for military training and experience. Both CTU and AIUS have signed each of the DoD’s standard MOUs, including the most recent in August 2019 which is effective through 2024.
Institutional Payment Plans 	
Some of our students will enter into institutional payment plans with our institutions to pay a portion, or occasionally all, of their institutional charges directly to the school. This may occur for students who have a gap between Title IV financial aid funding and other third-party aid available to them and the institutional charges or for students who are enrolled in programs or courses for which Title IV or other financial aid is not offered. We offer these payment plans over the in-school period, and up to 12 months beyond graduation. The payment plans do not charge interest.
Eligibility and Certification by the Department
Under the provisions of the Higher Education Act, an institution must apply to the Department for continued certification to participate in Title IV Programs at least every six years or when it undergoes a change of control. In addition, an institution must obtain the Department's approval for certain substantial changes in its operations, including changes in an institution’s accrediting agency or state authorizing agency or changes to an institution’s structure or certain basic educational features.
Institutions approved to participate in Title IV Programs sign a program participation agreement provided by the Department that describes the terms of participation and includes a number of certifications and assurances made by the head of the institutions. As long as an institution has submitted an application for re-certification prior to the expiration of its current program participation agreement, the institution’s eligibility to participate in Title IV Programs continues on a month-to-month basis until the Department completes its review. The Department may issue full certification to an institution, it may deny certification or it may elect to issue provisional certification, in which case the program participation agreement outlines additional requirements that the institution must meet.
The Department may place an institution on provisional certification status if it finds that the institution does not fully satisfy all required eligibility and certification standards. During the period of provisional certification, an institution must obtain prior Department approval to add an educational program, open a new location or make any other significant change. Provisional certification does not generally limit an institution’s access to Title IV Program funds. The Department may withdraw an institution’s provisional certification without advance notice if the Department determines that the institution is not fulfilling all material requirements.
In May 2019, both CTU and AIUS (then known as AIU) received renewals of their program participation agreements through March 31, 2021. CTU was removed from provisional certification, while AIUS remains on provisional certification due to open regulatory review processes with the Department at the time of the renewal. Following the Trident acquisition and AIU’s implementation of a university system model, institutional accreditation and approval by the Department continues at the system level.
CTU and AIUS each submitted its application for recertification to continue participation in Title IV Programs on December 21, 2020 and await completion of the Department’s review.
In connection with its administration of Title IV Programs, the Department has broad powers to request information and review records of a participating institution. Since December 2021, the Company has been responding to ongoing extensive requests for information from the Department relating to CTU and AIUS. Significant resources are required to respond to the requests and the Department’s review of information provided could lead to additional requests for information or claims of noncompliance with the extensive regulatory requirements relating to the administration of Title IV Programs.
See Item 1A, “Risk Factors - Risks Related to the Highly Regulated Field in Which We Operate - Compliance with the extensive regulatory requirements applicable to our business can be costly and time consuming, and failure to comply could result in financial penalties, restrictions on our operations, loss of federal and state financial aid funding for our students, or loss of our authorization to operate our institutions.” and “If the Department denies, or significantly conditions, recertification of either of our
institutions to participate in Title IV Programs, that institution could not conduct its business as it is currently conducted,” and other risk factors in Item 1A for additional information about the risks surrounding continued participation in Title IV Programs.
Scrutiny of the For-Profit Postsecondary Education Sector
In recent years, Congress, the Department, states, accrediting agencies, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”), the FTC, state attorneys general and the media have all scrutinized the for-profit postsecondary education sector. Congressional hearings and roundtable discussions were held regarding various aspects of the education industry, including issues surrounding student debt as well as publicly reported student outcomes that may be used as part of an institution’s recruiting and admissions practices, and reports were issued that are highly critical of for-profit colleges and universities. A group of influential U.S. senators, consumer advocacy groups and some media outlets have strongly and repeatedly encouraged the Department, DoD and the VA and its state approving agencies to take action to limit or terminate the participation of institutions such as ours in existing tuition assistance programs. In addition, targeted loan relief to student borrowers is a stated priority for the Department, and consumer advocacy groups and others are focusing their lobbying and other efforts relating to student debt forgiveness on for-profit colleges and universities, encouraging loan discharge applications and complaints by former students.
The current administration is pursuing significant regulatory and administrative actions that will affect our business. For example, as discussed below, new regulations including an updated 90-10 Rule will go into effect in 2023, and numerous existing or former regulations are being modified or repurposed for future adoption by the Department. Any actions that limit our participation in Title IV Programs or the amount of student financial aid for which our students are eligible would materially impact our student enrollments and profitability and could impact the continued viability of our business as currently conducted. See Item 1A, “Risk Factors - Risks Related to the Highly Regulated Field in Which We Operate.”
Legislative Action and Recent Department Regulatory Initiatives
The U.S. Congress must periodically reauthorize the Higher Education Act and other laws governing Title IV Programs and annually determines the funding level for each Title IV Program, historically every five to six years.
The Higher Education Opportunity Act (“HEOA”) was the most recent reauthorization of the Higher Education Act and was signed into law on August 14, 2008. It revised many of the regulations governing an institution’s eligibility to participate in Title IV Programs.
Congress has subsequently taken several actions that effectively extend the Higher Education Act and various Title IV Programs on a temporary basis. Congress could work to reauthorize the Higher Education Act in its entirety, pass a series of smaller bills that focus on individual parts of the Higher Education Act, primarily Title IV Programs, or continue to extend existing Title IV Programs for more limited terms while continuing debate on broader policy objectives. Additionally, legislative changes impacting Title IV Programs is included in broader legislation from time to time. For example, on March 11, 2021, President Biden signed a multi-faceted legislative package that includes new economic stimulus measures broadly targeting various aspects of the U.S. economy. Congress included in this legislation a modification to the “90-10 Rule” applicable to for-profit institutions that alters the measurement under the rule from the percentage of Title IV Program tuition revenue an institution receives to the percentage of “federal educational assistance” an institution receives.
On October 28, 2022, the Department published final regulations for three topics that were part of the Department’s 2021-2022 negotiated rulemaking agenda: 90-10 Rule, Change of Ownership, and Prison Education Programs. These regulations generally become effective July 1, 2023.
See the “Compliance with Federal Regulatory Standards and Effect of Federal Regulatory Violations” section below for information about the 90-10 Rule and Item 1A, “Risk Factors - Risks Related to the Highly Regulated Field in Which We Operate - Our institutions could lose their eligibility to participate in federal student financial aid programs, face limitations on their ability to serve new or former students or have other limitations placed upon them if the percentage of their revenues derived from certain federal programs is too high," for information regarding risks relating to the 90-10 Rule.
On April 6, 2022, the Department announced a student loan initiative, aimed at eliminating negative effects for federal student loan borrowers who are in default on existing student loans. The Department estimates the initiative will allow approximately 7.5 million borrowers with defaulted federal student loans to return to repayment while removing delinquencies, once repayment of federal loans restarts after the COVID related suspension of loan repayment. This initiative effectively provides the following benefits to these borrowers: restores access to repayment options, restores eligibility to receive new or additional federal student aid and stops any adverse consequences of collection agency efforts and negative credit reporting. This initiative will last until one year from the end of the repayment pause that has been in effect since the beginning of the COVID pandemic in March of 2020.
On August 24, 2022, President Biden and the Department announced a plan to provide broad student loan forgiveness to borrowers with certain federal student loans. The plan provides $20,000 in debt relief to Pell Grant recipients with loans held by the Department and up to $10,000 in debt relief to non-Pell Grant recipients. Borrowers are eligible for this relief if their individual income is less than $125,000 or $250,000 for households. This plan includes our current and former students that had these types of federal loan balances as of June 30, 2022. The Congressional Budget Office (“CBO”) estimated that 42.4 million individuals will be
eligible for debt relief at a total cost of $430 billion. The plan was described as a form of COVID pandemic-related financial support that relies upon Congressional authorization given to the Department for loan modifications for individuals impacted by national emergencies. The plan is currently subject to a number of legal challenges in Federal courts. The Supreme Court has agreed to review two of these challenges and will hear oral arguments in February 2023. The Department is currently enjoined from proceeding with this loan forgiveness initiative while the Supreme Court considers the pending challenges. Loan relief would benefit eligible current and former students, however, we are unable to determine what impact it will have on our schools, if any, or on any pending borrower defense to repayment or closed school discharge claims.
Scrutiny of the for-profit postsecondary education sector and the ongoing policy differences in Congress regarding spending levels could lead to significant regulatory changes in connection with the upcoming reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. For example, on January 5, 2023, the Biden administration announced that the Department will hold a series of negotiated rulemaking sessions in spring 2023 to propose new rules regarding accreditation, distance education, student loan deferments and a range of other topics.
Many of these changes may be adverse to postsecondary institutions generally or for-profit institutions specifically. See Item 1A, “Risk Factors - Risks Related to the Highly Regulated Field in Which We Operate - The extensive regulatory requirements applicable to our business may change, in particular as a result of the scrutiny of the for-profit postsecondary education sector and efforts of the Biden administration, which could require us to make substantial changes to our business, reduce our profitability and make compliance more difficult."
Two additional regulatory initiatives by the Department of significance have occurred in recent years. First is related to continuous changes to “borrower defense to repayment” regulations in 2016, 2019 and again in 2022. See the “Compliance with Federal Regulatory Standards and Effect of Federal Regulatory Violations” section below for a description of these regulations. The Department published its latest version of these rules in final regulations on November 1, 2022 in the Federal Register, which means the updated regulations will become effective July 1, 2023 (see “Negotiated Rulemaking 2022: Affordability and Student Loans” below).
Second, the Department’s rulemaking efforts in 2019 resulted in the rescission of previously adopted “gainful employment” regulations. Our institutions, and most other for-profit institutions, qualify for Title IV Program participation on the basis that they offer programs that, in addition to meeting other requirements, “prepare students for gainful employment in a recognized occupation.” During 2013, the Department established negotiated rulemaking committees, one specifically designed to limit Title IV availability for programs at for-profit institutions by defining gainful employment in a recognized occupation. On October 30, 2014, the Department published a new complex final regulation, effective July 1, 2015, to define “gainful employment” as meeting certain standards measuring the general amount students borrow for enrollment in a program against an amount of their reported earnings. Prior to this rulemaking, the term gainful employment had been used in the Higher Education Act for forty years, and had not been further defined by Congress or the Department. Through negotiated rulemaking sessions, the Department considered different options for adopting a uniform set of requirements that could be applicable to all schools and not specifically targeted at for-profit institutions. After a public comment period on its proposal, the Department published a final regulation on July 1, 2019 to rescind the 2015 gainful employment regulation effective on July 1, 2020. In lieu of the complex gainful employment regulation designed to eliminate program eligibility, the Department continued to update the college scorecards it developed, which apply to all Title IV eligible institutions, with relevant information for prospective students. While the eligibility tests and disclosures associated with the 2015 gainful employment regulation are no longer required, the term “gainful employment” continues to exist in the Higher Education Act and CTU’s and AIUS’ Title IV eligible programs will continue to need to be career focused educational programs. The Department has begun the process of re-adopting a new version of this regulation as part of its 2022 negotiated rulemaking covering institutional and programmatic eligibility (see “Negotiated Rulemaking 2022: Institutional and Programmatic Eligibility” below). Initial discussions as part of the negotiated rulemakings have considered adoption of program eligibility rules that, like the 2015 gainful employment regulation, would measure student debt at a program level against a measure of earnings. However, these discussions have also included various potential adjustments that may cause programs that passed the eligibility test under the 2015 gainful employment regulation to lose Title IV Program eligibility under the new regulation. Because the 2022 negotiated rulemaking on gainful employment did not reach consensus among the participants, the Department is free to publish proposed rules without being limited to language or rules considered and accepted by negotiators and has indicated it expects to publish new proposed rules regarding gainful employment for public comment in the spring of 2023. We are closely monitoring the ongoing rulemaking process but are unable to determine the potential impact of any final regulations on our business at this time. See Item 1A, “Risk Factors - Risks Related to the Highly Regulated Field in Which We Operate -The extensive regulatory requirements applicable to our business may change, in particular as a result of the scrutiny of the for-profit postsecondary education sector and efforts of the Biden administration, which could require us to make substantial changes to our business, reduce our profitability and make compliance more difficult," for information about the potential impact of new regulations on our business.
Negotiated Rulemaking 2022: Affordability and Student Loans
In December 2021, the Department concluded negotiated rulemaking on a number of topics related to affordability and student loans. The topics discussed during these negotiations generally related to different Title IV regulations that impact the Department’s ability to discharge student loans. During the process, the Department expressed a goal of making it easier for students to have their
loans discharged or forgiven and providing more favorable loan repayment terms. The Department also intends to make it easier to seek recovery of discharged loan funds from institutions. On July 13, 2022, the Department published in the Federal Register a set of proposed regulations for public comment covering most of the topics that were part of the affordability and student loan negotiations. The public comment period was set at 30 days and concluded on August 12, 2022. The Department published final regulations on November 1, 2022 in the Federal Register, which means these regulations will become effective July 1, 2023.
These new regulations from the November 1, 2022 Final Rule include the following topics:
•discharges for borrowers with a total and permanent disability;
•eliminating certain interest capitalization events not required by statute;
•discharges for when a school falsely certifies a student was eligible for Title IV Program financial aid;
•closed school discharges;
•expanding and simplifying public service loan forgiveness;
•modifying the bases for borrower defense to repayment ("BDR") claims as well as the adjudication processes for student claims;
•modifying the procedures for recovering funds from schools for loans discharged pursuant to the borrower defense to repayment process; and
•prohibiting schools from adopting or enforcing pre-dispute arbitration agreements and waivers of class action lawsuits.
These rules remove certain barriers and simplify the process for borrowers with a total and permanent disability and borrowers seeking public service loan forgiveness. The rules also expand closed school discharge provisions. The rules reduce the required supporting evidence and related obligations of students applying for BDR loan forgiveness, expand the categories students could raise in a BDR application, and provide the Department wide latitude to selectively adjudicate future BDR applications without affording institutions adequate opportunity to respond and potentially without regard to the individual merits of the BDR applications. The BDR rules remove any statute of limitations on student claims and create a rebuttable presumption in favor of full loan forgiveness as opposed to partial relief for most approved applications, eliminating the Department’s approach under the current rules of assessing whether and to what extent a student had been financially harmed. The proposed rules also increase the burden on institutions to maintain and provide documentation to refute student claims. As a result, an institution’s failure to maintain and provide timely and responsive information that goes beyond the contents of a typical student’s academic file in response to future BDR applications could form the basis for loan forgiveness. The combination of the reduced requirements, increased categories, and presumptions will increase the likelihood of loan forgiveness and potentially create a significant financial incentive for existing and former students to apply for loan forgiveness regardless of a claim’s merit. In fact, the Department’s current efforts to settle litigation in the Sweet Matter (see Borrower Defense to Repayment: Department Settlement of Pending BDR Applications, Inducement of New Claims for more information regarding the Sweet Matter) reflects an attempt to discharge the loans for hundreds of thousands of students without regards to the merits of their claims and induced the filing of tens of thousands of new BDR applications in a matter of only a few months from students hoping to benefit from the opportunity afforded by the settlement.
Under existing BDR rules, the standards applicable to BDR applications generally corresponds to the rules that were in effect when the loans were first disbursed to the student. The standards arising from existing and prior regulations are sometimes referred to as the pre-2016 BDR standards, the 2016 BDR standards, and the 2019 BDR standards to correlate to the BDR rules initially applicable when adopted in 1994, and later revised by the Department in 2016 and 2019. The Department seeks to eliminate the differing standards that have resulted from these prior rulemakings. Upon the effective date of these new regulations, the Department proposes to apply its new standards to all pending and future BDR applications regardless of prior rules or limitations applicable to such BDR applications and regardless of the student’s loan disbursement date.
As a separate process from the adjudication of a borrower’s BDR application, the rules establish a new process for the Department to recoup funds from schools for any loans forgiven pursuant to a BDR application. The new rules require the Department to rely upon and adhere to existing or prior applicable BDR regulations for loans disbursed prior to the effective date of the regulations, but would significantly expand the basis for recovery for loans disbursed after the rules become effective.
Separately, on January 11, 2023, the Department published for a 30-day public comment period, a proposed rule that would significantly modify the terms of income-based repayment plans, including providing reduced monthly payments, shortening the period of repayment that results in loan forgiveness and lowering financing costs for students. This proposed modified rule was one of the 2022 negotiated rulemaking topics. The proposed regulations would also allow borrowers to receive credit toward forgiveness for certain periods of deferment or forbearance. The Department has previously indicated the Secretary intends to accelerate the effectiveness of this rule.
We continue to closely monitor the rulemaking process along with the Department’s public statements, legal filings, and other communications, but are unable to determine the ultimate impact of any final regulations on our business at this time. See Item 1A,
“Risk Factors - Risks Related to the Highly Regulated Field in Which We Operate - The extensive regulatory requirements applicable to our business may change, in particular as a result of the scrutiny of the for-profit postsecondary education sector and efforts of the Biden administration, which could require us to make substantial changes to our business, reduce our profitability and make compliance more difficult," for information about the potential impact of new regulations on our business.
Negotiated Rulemaking 2022: Institutional and Programmatic Eligibility
On October 4, 2021, the Department announced its intent to establish another negotiated rulemaking committee to develop proposed regulations related to institutional and programmatic eligibility. Negotiating sessions of the institutional and programmatic eligibility negotiated rulemaking committee were held in January, February and March 2022. The Department provided issue papers that revealed its intent to impose a number of additional obligations for schools and programs to remain eligible for Title IV funds.
On July 28, 2022, the Department published in the Federal Register another set of proposed regulations for public comment covering a topic that was part of the 2021 affordability and student loan negotiations along with two topics that were part of the 2022 institutional and programmatic eligibility negotiations. The public comment period was set for 30 days and concluded on August 27, 2022. The Department published final regulations on October 28, 2022 in the Federal Register, which means these regulations will become effective July 1, 2023.
The new regulations from the October 28, 2022 Final Rule include the following topics:
•adopting new regulations to calculate the percentage of a for-profit school’s revenue that is derived from federal education assistance, referred to as the “90-10 Rule”;
•placing additional requirements and limits on changes of ownership or control; and
•Pell Grant eligibility for prison education programs.
The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (H.R.1319), passed on March 11, 2021, amended the Higher Education Act requirement of the 90-10 Rule that for-profit schools derive no more than 90% of their tuition and fee revenue from Title IV funds to require that for-profit schools derive no more than 90% of their tuition and fee revenue from generally any identifiable sources of federal funding. The regulation describing the new 90-10 Rule includes an expanded view of what federal aid is considered “federal educational assistance funds” under the rule, and is intended to include any identifiable revenue a school receives from tuition assistance programs offered by federal agencies, such as the Departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, and Labor. The new rule also includes a number of technical changes, including a departure from the historical focus on cash basis revenue and existing Title IV Program cash management regulations. For example, institutions would be required to accelerate the receipt of, or would be deemed to have received, federal funds at the end of the annual measurement period. Although the Department published regulations in its Final Rule that are consistent with the consensus language reached during negotiated rulemaking, the Department included in the preamble to the regulation a number of interpretations that are likely not consistent with the consensus language and may potentially narrow and/or limit non-federal revenue that may be included by institutions in their annual calculations. These interpretations were offered with limited explanation and are expected to make future compliance with these regulations unclear and therefore more difficult for for-profit institutions.
We are continuing to evaluate these regulations along with the Department’s interpretations, public statements, and other communications but are unable to determine the ultimate impact of these final regulations on our business at this time. See Item 1A, "Risk Factors - Risks Related to the Highly Regulated Field in Which We Operate - The extensive regulatory requirements applicable to our business may change, in particular as a result of the scrutiny of the for-profit postsecondary education sector and efforts of the Biden administration, which could require us to make substantial changes to our business, reduce our profitability and make compliance more difficult," and "Our institutions could lose their eligibility to participate in federal student financial aid programs, face limitations on their ability to serve new or former students or have other limitations placed upon them if the percentage of their revenues derived from certain federal programs is too high," for information about the potential impact of new regulations on our business.
The Department’s final and proposed rules impose additional burdens on schools, and often apply to schools unevenly. For example, the 90-10 Rule is an additional annual eligibility test requirement that applies exclusively to for-profit sector schools. The gainful employment rule is designed to primarily impose additional requirements on for-profit sector programs and many of the proposed modifications to other long standing existing rules contain new requirements that relate exclusively to for-profit sector schools and their ownership structures. The previously adopted and rescinded gainful employment regulation is discussed above in this “Legislative Action and Recent Department Regulatory Initiatives” section, and please see the “Compliance with Federal Regulatory Standards and Effect of Federal Regulatory Violations” section below for an overview of the current rules relating to the 90-10 Rule, change of ownership or control, financial responsibility and administrative capability.
On June 23, 2022 the Department of Education announced it is delaying several rule proposals to the spring of 2023, meaning that the earliest the regulations could take effect will be after July 1, 2024. According to regulatory updates with the Office of Management and Budget, the Notices of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) will be delayed until April of 2023 for the following rules:
•Ability to Benefit (ATB)
•Gainful Employment (GE)
•Financial Responsibility
•Administrative Capability
•Certification Procedures
The negotiated rulemaking committee reached consensus on the ATB rule, but did not reach consensus on the others. Additionally, the Department has reported that it intends to pursue additional negotiated rulemaking in the future in a number of additional areas, including state authorization, distance education, returning Title IV funds, modifying loan deferments and forbearances, accreditation, third-party servicers, cash management and the federal TRIO programs. Negotiated rulemaking committees convened in recent years generally have not reached consensus, resulting in the Department having significant latitude in formulating regulations. We are closely monitoring the negotiated rulemaking process but are unable to determine the potential impact of any future rule proposals or final regulations on our business at this time.
Separately, on February 15, 2023, the Department announced its intention to conduct listening sessions in March 2023 aimed at reviewing its incentive compensation rules. At the same time, it also issued a Dear Colleague Letter that updated guidance to significantly expand its interpretation of the types of service providers that qualify as participating in the administration of Title IV funds under the definition of a “Third Party Servicer.” Although, the Department is taking public comments on its updated guidance for 30 days, it has indicated its new interpretations are effective immediately. We are assessing the support provided by various service providers against this updated guidance but are unable to determine the potential impact it may have on our business at this time. See Item 1A, “Risk Factors - Risks Related to the Highly Regulated Field in Which We Operate - The extensive regulatory requirements applicable to our business may change, in particular as a result of the scrutiny of the for-profit postsecondary education sector and efforts of the Biden administration, which could require us to make substantial changes to our business, reduce our profitability and make compliance more difficult," for information about the potential impact of new regulations on our business.
Compliance with Federal Regulatory Standards and Effect of Federal Regulatory Violations
To be eligible to participate in Title IV Programs, an institution must comply with the Higher Education Act and regulations thereunder that are administered by the Department. We and our institutions are regularly subject to audits and compliance reviews and periodically subject to inquiries, lawsuits, investigations, and/or claims of non-compliance from federal and state regulatory agencies, accrediting agencies, the Department, present and former students and employees, and others that may allege violations of statutes, regulations, accreditation standards or other regulatory requirements applicable to us or our institutions. If the results of any such audits, reviews, investigations, claims or actions are unfavorable to us, we may be required to pay monetary damages or be subject to fines, operational limitations, loss of federal funding, injunctions, additional oversight and reporting, provisional certification or other civil or criminal penalties. In addition, if the Department or another regulatory agency determined that one of our institutions improperly disbursed Title IV Program funds or violated a provision of the Higher Education Act or the Department’s regulations, that institution could be required to repay such funds, and could be assessed an administrative fine.
The Higher Education Act also requires that an institution’s administration of Title IV Program funds be audited annually by an independent accounting firm and that the resulting audit report be submitted to the Department for review. In September 2016, the Department’s Office of Inspector General released a revised audit guide applicable specifically to proprietary schools and third-party servicers administering Title IV programs. The updated guide is effective for fiscal years beginning after June 30, 2016. The revised audit guide was effective for us for the year ending December 31, 2017 and applies to annual compliance audits due June 30, 2018 and thereafter. The new guide significantly increases the requirements and testing procedures necessary when filing our annual Title IV compliance audits.
“90-10 Rule”
Under a provision of the Higher Education Act commonly referred to as the “90-10 Rule,” any of our institutions that, on modified cash basis accounting, derives more than 90% of its cash receipts from Title IV sources for a fiscal year will be placed on provisional participation status for its next two fiscal years. If an institution does not satisfy the 90-10 Rule for two consecutive fiscal years, it will lose its eligibility to participate in Title IV Programs for at least two fiscal years. We have substantially no control over the amount of Title IV student loans and grants sought by or awarded to our students. If an institution violates the 90-10 Rule and becomes ineligible to participate in Title IV Programs but continues to disburse Title IV Program funds, the Department could require repayment of all Title IV Program funds received by it after the effective date of the loss of eligibility.
We have implemented various measures intended to reduce the percentage of our institution’s cash basis revenue attributable to Title IV Program funds, including emphasizing employer-paid and other direct-pay education programs such as our corporate partnerships, diversifying our educational offerings to increase the portion of our students who do not rely on Title IV Programs, recruitment of international students, the use of externally funded scholarships and grants and counseling students to carefully evaluate the amount of necessary Title IV Program borrowing.
The 90-10 rate calculations for the year ended December 31, 2021 were 83.72% for CTU and 86.21% for AIUS. Our preliminary calculation of the 90-10 rates for our institutions for the year ended December 31, 2022 is approximately 82% for CTU
and approximately 84% for AIUS, which are in compliance with the 90-10 Rule. However, as discussed above in “Legislative Action and Recent Department Regulatory Initiatives," the calculation under the existing 90-10 Rule will be replaced with a new calculation starting with the 2023 fiscal year. The regulation describing the new 90-10 Rule includes an expansive view of what federal aid is considered “federal educational assistance funds” under the rule, and is intended to include any identifiable revenue a school receives from tuition assistance programs offered by federal agencies, such as the Departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs and Labor, as well as any additional federal funding that may be received indirectly through other programs subsidized by federal sources that are intended to cover education expenses. The new rule also includes a number of technical changes, including a departure from the historical focus on cash basis revenue and existing Title IV Program cash management regulations. For example, institutions would be required to accelerate the receipt of, or would be deemed to have received, federal funds at the end of the annual measurement period. Although the Department published regulations in its Final Rule that are consistent with the consensus language reached during negotiated rulemaking, the Department included in the preamble to the regulation a number of interpretations are likely not consistent with the consensus language and that may potentially narrow and/or limit non-federal revenue that may be included by institutions in their annual calculations. These interpretations were offered with limited explanation and are expected to make future compliance with these regulations more difficult for for-profit institutions. We are continuing to evaluate these regulations along with the Department’s interpretations, public statements, and other communications. We have implemented various measures intended to reduce the percentage of our institutions’ cash basis revenue attributable to designated federal funding sources, including efforts to diversify the sources of our revenue. However, these measures may not be adequate to prevent our institutions' 90-10 Rule percentages from exceeding 90% in the future, and may not be sufficient to allow our institutions to serve degree seeking prospective students at the same rates as we have historically or may require limiting the type or volume of new students we enroll or programs we offer. We may be required to modify our business operations, including reducing our investments in advertising, in order to preserve our existing students’ ability to continue benefitting from financial assistance for their education pursuant to Title IV Programs. On December 21, 2022, the Department published in the Federal Register the list of Federal Education Assistance to be included as “federal educational assistance” under the revised rule. This publication confirmed that government education assistance for military or veteran personnel is considered “federal educational assistance.” Furthermore, the Department indicates that the list is not all encompassing as certain non-federal entities may sub-grant award funds under various names, and that it is up to each institution to determine if there are federal funds included in amounts received from students or other funding sources, and the precise federal and non-federal breakdown in instances where funds may be co-mingled. The result makes compliance with the revised rule more difficult, as well as adding additional layers of complexity for institutions to calculate a rate under the new rules.
The ability of our institutions to maintain 90-10 rates below 90% will depend on the impact of future changes in our student enrollment mix, and regulatory and other factors outside of our control. In addition, changes in, or new interpretations of, the technical aspects of the calculation methodology or other industry practices under the 90-10 Rule could further significantly impact our compliance with the 90-10 Rule.
See Item 1A, “Risk Factors - Risks Related to the Highly Regulated Field in Which We Operate - Our institutions could lose their eligibility to participate in federal student financial aid programs, face limitations on their ability to serve new or former students or have other limitations placed upon them if the percentage of their revenues derived from certain Federal programs is too high," for additional information regarding risks relating to the 90-10 Rule.
Student Loan Default Rates
An institution may lose eligibility to participate in some or all Title IV Programs if the rates at which its former students default on the repayment of their federally-guaranteed or federally-funded student loans exceed specified percentages. This is determined by an institution’s cohort default rate which is calculated on an annual basis as a measure of administrative capability. Each cohort is the group of students who first enter into student loan repayment during a federal fiscal year (ending September 30). An institution’s cohort default rate is calculated as the percentage of borrowers who entered repayment in the relevant federal fiscal year who default before the end of the second fiscal year following the fiscal year in which the borrowers entered repayment. This represents a three-year measurement period.
If an institution’s three-year cohort default rate exceeds 10% for any one of the three preceding years, it must delay for 30 days the release of the first disbursement of U.S. federal student loan proceeds to first time borrowers enrolled in the first year of an undergraduate program. As a matter of regular practice, our institutions have implemented a 30-day delay for such disbursements.
If an institution’s three-year cohort default rate exceeds 30% for any given year, it must establish a default prevention task force and develop a default prevention plan with measurable objectives for improving the cohort default rate.
Excessive three-year cohort default rates will result in the loss of an institution’s Title IV eligibility, as follows:
•	Annual test. If the three-year cohort default rate for any given year exceeds 40%, the institution will cease to be eligible to participate in Title IV Programs; and
•	Three consecutive years test. If the institution’s three-year cohort default rate exceeds 30% for three consecutive years, the institution will cease to be eligible to participate in Title IV Programs.
We have initiatives aimed at reducing the likelihood of our students’ failure to repay their loans in a timely manner. These initiatives emphasize the importance of students’ compliance with loan repayment requirements and provide for loan counseling and communication with students after they cease enrollment. Our efforts supplement the counseling, processing and other student loan servicing work performed by the Department through contracts it has with select third parties. The quality and nature of the student loan servicing work performed by the Department has a direct impact on our cohort default rates and we have experienced past performance failures by the Department and its student loan servicers in outreach to students which adversely impact the cohort default rates at our institutions.
In September 2022, the Department released the official three-year cohort default rates for the 2019 cohort. Both of our institutions had cohort default rates under the 30% threshold for the 2019 cohort. We increased our student communication, counseling and other efforts in this area beginning in late 2016 and have begun to see improvements in the cohort default rate beginning with the 2016 cohort, however more recent rates have been favorably impacted by a pause in repayment requirements due to COVID as discussed above. A listing of the official 2019, 2018 and 2017 three-year cohort default rates for our institutions is provided in the table below.
Cohort Default Rates
3-year rate
Institution, Main Campus Location
(Additional locations as defined by accreditors are in parentheses)
2018 (2)
American InterContinental University (1)
Chandler, AZ (Online) (Atlanta, GA and Houston, TX)
4.4%
14.0%
17.0%
Colorado Technical University
Colorado Springs, CO (Denver, CO and Online)
4.3%
14.6%
16.0%
______________________
(1)Cohort default rates for American InterContinental University do not include results associated with Trident University.
(2)Rates were modified based on corrections made as part of official appeal processes.
As part of the CARES Act, which was signed into law on March 27, 2020, federal student loan payments and interest were suspended for a period of time, which the Department has periodically extended. Currently, the Department has established the repayment resumption date to be 60 days after resolution of pending legal challenges to its intended loan forgiveness initiative, but not later than 60 days from June 30, 2023. During this period, student loan borrowers have their loans placed in forbearance, and as such, are no longer required to make payments on their federal student loans. Consequently, no further defaults can occur during this period. Based on this forbearance, and more specifically the timing of it, we expect a favorable impact to the 2020-2021 cohort default rates, with the expectation that these rates will be lower as compared to 2018 and 2019, which were also favorably impacted by the forbearance to a lesser extent. After the forbearance ends, all students will need to resume their next normally scheduled payment. It is unclear how many students will commence their regularly scheduled payments when the forbearance expires, and whether the loan servicers will be able to handle the volume of borrowers resuming repayment obligations all at the same time. The Department has warned that defaults may rise considerably when the blanket forbearance expires. As a result, whether this forbearance has any negative impact on future cohorts is unclear.
Borrower Defense to Repayment
On October 28, 2016, the Department adopted new regulations that cover multiple issues including the processes and standards for the discharge of federal student loans, which are commonly referred to as “borrower defense to repayment” regulations. The Department initially delayed the effective date of these regulations; however, after a successful legal challenge against the delay, the Department published guidance to institutions on March 15, 2019 regarding how to implement the 2016 regulations while noting that a new set of regulations was forthcoming. On September 23, 2019, the Department published new final “borrower defense to repayment” regulations that became effective on July 1, 2020. The new 2019 final borrower defense to repayment regulations are summarized below and will result in a distinct loan discharge process and standards applicable to federal student loans first disbursed after July 1, 2020. Further changes to the borrower defense to repayment regulations are being considered. See Legislative Action and Recent Department Regulatory Initiatives - Negotiated Rulemaking 2022: Affordability and Student Loans,” for more information.
2019 Final Regulations - Summary
Loan Discharge. The 2019 borrower defense to repayment regulations significantly alter how loan discharge applications will be treated by the Department. In addition to adopting the more balanced burden of proof standard of “preponderance of the evidence,” the 2019 regulations provide for a single new federal standard for a misrepresentation claim a student may assert against its school. Under the new standard, an individual borrower may assert a defense to repayment based on the institution’s statement, act, or omission that is false, misleading, or deceptive. To be eligible for relief, the borrower would be required to demonstrate that the misrepresentation (1) was made with knowledge of its false, misleading, or deceptive nature or with a reckless disregard for the truth, (2) was relied upon by the borrower in making an enrollment decision, and (3) caused the student financial harm.
In addition, the 2019 final regulations eliminate the concept of automatic group loan discharges contained in the 2016 regulations and require individual claims to be made by students and include a process for the institution to provide a defense to any claims asserted.
Financial Responsibility. The 2019 final borrower defense to repayment regulations contain a number of triggering events that will result in an institution not qualifying as financially responsible or administratively capable. These triggering events include:
•an order from the SEC that suspends trading in our stock or revokes the registration of our securities or suspends trading of our stock on its national securities exchange;
•failure to timely file required public reports with the SEC without an extension being issued;
•notification by Nasdaq that our stock is not in compliance with its exchange requirements and/or may be delisted; and
•two or more concurrent and unresolved discretionary triggering events become mandatory triggering events.
Additionally, the 2019 final regulations include more definitive financial events that will cause the Department to re-calculate an institution’s most recent financial responsibility composite score to determine whether the losses or reduction in owner’s equity from the event cause the composite score to fall below 1.0. The composite score is one measure the Department uses to evaluate an institution’s financial responsibility using annual financial statements. These triggering events that can lead to the recalculation of a composite score include, but are not limited to:
•incurring a liability from a settlement, final judgment or final determination arising from an administrative or judicial action or proceeding initiated by a federal or state entity; and
•if our composite score is below 1.5 and we withdraw owner’s equity, such as through a distribution of dividends.
The 2019 final regulations also keep select discretionary triggering events contained in the 2016 regulations that allow the Department to designate an institution as not financially responsible. These discretionary triggering events include:
•failure to satisfy the 90-10 Rule in any year;
•cohort default rates in excess of 30% for two consecutive years;
•citation from a state licensing or authorizing agency of failing to meet state or agency requirements;
•an institution is placed on show-cause, probation or similar adverse action threatening an institution’s accreditation for failure to meet an accreditation standard;
•high annual dropout rates, as determined by the Department; and
•violation of a provision or requirement in a loan agreement.
The triggering events in the 2019 final regulations are significantly less subjective than a number of the eliminated triggering events that were included in the 2016 regulations. If any of the triggering events materialize, our institutions may be required to post a letter of credit equal to 10% or more of the institution’s previous year’s annual Title IV disbursements.
Repayment Rate Disclosure Eliminated. The 2019 final defense to repayment regulations eliminated a separate repayment rate disclosure obligation from the 2016 regulations that applied only to for-profit institutions.
Student Loans Disbursed Prior to July 1, 2020
Prior to the July 1, 2020 effective date of the 2019 final regulations, institutions were required to follow the 2016 regulations, subject to the Department’s guidance and direction. As a result, student loans disbursed between July 1, 2017 and July 1, 2020 will follow the loan discharge processes outlined in the 2016 regulations. The 2016 regulations allow the Department to process discharge claims on a group basis, has a much broader definition of what constitutes an eligible misrepresentation, including inadvertent errors, has a lower burden of proof for students and fewer due process protections for institutions. Student loans disbursed before July 1, 2017 will follow the Department’s original discharge standards and processes that specify that a borrower may assert a defense to repayment based on an act or omission by the school that would give rise to a cause of action under state law. Causes of action under state law are broad and therefore we believe that most student claims would likely give rise to a cause of action under state law.
Department Settlement of Pending BDR Applications, Inducement of New Claims
On November 16, 2022, a California federal court in Sweet v. Cardona, No. 3:19-cv-3674 (N.D. Cal.) approved a settlement agreement entered into by the Department in a class action lawsuit that challenges the way the Department has been dealing with borrower defense applications over the past few years (“Sweet Settlement”). The Sweet Settlement provides a streamlined path to debt forgiveness for former students of over 150 schools, including AIUS, CTU, and institutions of ours that have previously closed. Neither the Company nor our current or former institutions are a party to this lawsuit. BDR applications pending at the time of the settlement agreement were approximately 286,000, but expanded by an addition 180,000 applications prior to the court’s final approval following publicity about the opportunity afforded by the settlement. The Department has neither identified the number of claims nor the specific claims covered by the Sweet Settlement that are related to our institutions. Because the process agreed to by the
Department in the Sweet Settlement does not follow the claim adjudication procedures set out in applicable regulations, it is uncertain whether claims covered by the Sweet Settlement can form the basis of a claim for recoupment against the Company or our institutions.
Pending Borrower Defense to Repayment Applications
In May 2021, the Department notified the Company that the Department has several thousand borrower defense applications that make claims regarding the Company’s institutions, including institutions that have ceased operations. As part of the initial fact-finding process, the Department will send individual student claims to the Company and allow the institutions the opportunity to submit responses to the borrower defense applications. A majority of the claims received involve institutions or campuses that have ceased operations and, in some cases, involve students who attended over 25 years ago. We have submitted responses to the claims received which indicate that we believe the applications fail to establish a valid borrower defense and the Department should therefore deny them. We have responded to substantial requests for information going back as far as 25 years with respect to these claims. The initial volume of several thousand has continued to expand significantly as the Department and outside interest groups have continued to promote different pathways for students to receive loan forgiveness or loan discharge. Despite our belief expressed in responses submitted to the Department that the applications fail to establish a valid borrower defense and the Department should therefore deny them, the Department has already agreed in the Sweet Settlement to discharge most of the applications we are aware of. Our belief is that those applications discharged pursuant to the Sweet Settlement would not be eligible for recoupment against the Company. Almost all of the applications we have been provided to date would be covered by procedures set forth in the Sweet Settlement. It remains unclear what loan discharge applications the Department may grant in the future and whether they will assert repayment claims against us regardless of the date the student loan was disbursed and the corresponding discharge standards and processes.
2022 Final Regulations - Summary
As part of the Institutional and Programmatic Eligibility rulemaking, on November 1, 2022, the Department of Education released final rules on borrower defense to repayment (“BDR”). The borrower defense to repayment rules have an effective date of July 1, 2023. The rules establish a single federal standard for BDR, include a new definition of aggressive and deceptive recruitment - one of five grounds under which a claim could be filed under the new rules - and reinstate a ban on pre-dispute arbitration and class action waivers. The grounds on which a student may make a claim for BDR under these new rules include:
•substantial misrepresentation,
•substantial omission of fact,
•breach of contract,
•aggressive and deceptive recruitment, or
•a federal, state judgment, departmental adverse action against an institution that could give rise to a borrower defense claim.
See Item 1A, “Risk Factors - Risks Related to the Highly Regulated Field in Which We Operate - 'Borrower defense to repayment' regulations, including closed school loan discharges, may subject us to significant repayment liability to the Department for discharged federal student loans and posting of substantial letters of credit that may limit our ability to make investments in our business which could negatively impact our future growth,” for more information about risks associated with the borrower defense to repayment regulations.
Financial Responsibility Standards
To participate in Title IV Programs, our institutions must either satisfy standards of financial responsibility prescribed by the Department, or post a letter of credit in favor of the Department and possibly accept other conditions on its participation in Title IV Programs. Pursuant to the Title IV Program regulations, each eligible higher education institution must, among other things, satisfy a quantitative standard of financial responsibility that is based on a weighted average of three annual tests which assess the financial condition of the institution. The three tests measure primary reserve, equity and net income ratios. The Primary Reserve Ratio is a measure of an institution’s financial viability and liquidity. The Equity Ratio is a measure of an institution’s capital resources and its ability to borrow. The Net Income Ratio is a measure of an institution’s profitability. These tests provide three individual scores that are converted into a single composite score. The maximum composite score is 3.0. If the institution achieves a composite score of at least 1.5, it is considered financially responsible without conditions or additional oversight. A composite score from 1.0 to 1.4 is considered to be in “the zone” of financial responsibility, and a composite score of less than 1.0 is not considered to be financially responsible. If an institution is in “the zone” of financial responsibility, the institution may establish eligibility to continue to participate in Title IV Programs on the following alternative bases:
• Zone Alternative. Under what is referred to as the “zone alternative,” an institution may continue to participate in Title IV Programs for up to three years under additional monitoring and reporting procedures but without having to post a letter of credit in favor of the Department. These additional monitoring and reporting procedures include being transferred from the “advance” method of payment of Title IV Program funds to cash monitoring status (referred to as Heightened Cash Monitoring 1, or “HCM1,” status) or to the “reimbursement” or Heightened Cash Monitoring 2 (“HCM2”) methods of payment. If an institution does not achieve a composite score of at least 1.0 in one of the three subsequent years or does not improve its financial condition to attain a composite
score of at least 1.5 by the end of the three-year period, the institution must satisfy another alternative standard to continue participating in Title IV Programs.
• Letter of Credit Alternative. An institution that fails to meet one of the standards of financial responsibility, including by having a composite score less than 1.5, may demonstrate financial responsibility by submitting an irrevocable letter of credit to the Department in an amount equal to at least 50% of the Title IV Program funds that the institution received during its most recently completed fiscal year.
• Provisional Certification. If an institution fails to meet one of the standards of financial responsibility, including by having a composite score less than 1.5, the Department may permit the institution to participate under provisional certification for up to three years. If the Department permits an institution to participate under provisional certification, an institution must comply with the requirements of the “zone alternative,” including being transferred to the HCM1, HCM2 or “reimbursement” method of payment of Title IV Program funds, and must submit a letter of credit to the Department in an amount determined by the Department which can range from 10%-100% of the Title IV Program funds that the institution received during its most recently completed fiscal year. If an institution is still not financially responsible at the end of the period of provisional certification, including because it has a composite score of less than 1.0, the Department may again permit provisional certification subject to the terms the Department determines appropriate.
The Department applies its quantitative financial responsibility tests annually based on an institution’s audited financial statements and may apply the tests if an institution undergoes a change in control or under other circumstances. The Department also may apply the tests to the parent company of our institutions, and to other related entities. Our composite score for the consolidated entity for the year ended December 31, 2021 was 3.0, and our preliminary calculation for the year ended December 31, 2022 is also 3.0, which is the highest possible score and considered financially responsible without conditions or additional oversight. If in the future we are required to satisfy the Department’s standards of financial responsibility on an alternative basis, including potentially by posting irrevocable letters of credit, we may not have the capacity to post these letters of credit.
Accreditor and state regulatory requirements also address financial responsibility, and these requirements vary among agencies and also are different from the Department requirements. Any developments relating to our satisfaction of the Department’s financial responsibility requirements may lead to additional focus or review by our accreditors or applicable state agencies regarding their respective financial responsibility requirements.
See Item 1A, “Risk Factors - Risks Related to the Highly Regulated Field in Which We Operate - A failure to demonstrate ‘financial responsibility’ or ‘administrative capability’ would have negative impacts on our operations,” for additional information regarding risks relating to the financial responsibility standards.
Return and Refunds of Title IV Program Funds
An institution participating in Title IV Programs must correctly calculate the amount of unearned Title IV Program funds that were disbursed to students who withdraw from their educational programs, and must return those funds to the government in a timely manner.
The portion of tuition and fee payments billed to students but not yet earned is recorded as deferred tuition revenue and reflected as a current liability on our consolidated balance sheets, as such amounts represent revenue that we expect to earn within the next year. If a student withdraws from one of our institutions prior to the completion of the academic term, we refund the portion of tuition and fees already paid that we are not entitled to retain, pursuant to applicable federal and state law and accrediting agency standards and our refund policy. The amount of funds to be refunded on behalf of a student is calculated based upon the period of time in which the student has attended classes and the amount of tuition and fees paid by the student as of the student’s withdrawal date.
Institutions are required to return any unearned Title IV funds within 45 days of the date the institution determines that the student has withdrawn. An institution that is found to be in non-compliance with the Department refund requirements for either of the last two completed fiscal years must post a letter of credit in favor of the Department in an amount equal to 25% of the total Title IV Program returns that were paid or should have been paid by the institution during its most recently completed fiscal year. As of December 31, 2022, we have posted no letters of credit in favor of the Department due to non-compliance with the Department refund requirements.
Change of Ownership or Control
When an institution undergoes a change of ownership resulting in a change of control, as that term is defined by the state in which it is located, its accrediting agency and the Department, it must secure the approval of those agencies to continue to operate and to continue to participate in Title IV Programs. If the institution is unable to re-establish state authorization and accreditation requirements and satisfy other requirements for certification by the Department, the institution may lose its authority to operate and its ability to participate in Title IV Programs. An institution whose change of ownership or control is approved by the appropriate authorities is nonetheless provisionally re-certified by the Department for a period of up to three years. Transactions or events that constitute a change of control by one or more of the applicable regulatory agencies, including the Department, applicable state agencies, and accrediting bodies, include the acquisition of an institution from another entity or significant acquisition or disposition
of an institution’s equity. It is possible that some of these events may occur without our control. Our failure to obtain, or a delay in obtaining, a required approval of any change in control from the Department, applicable state agencies, or accrediting agencies could impair our ability or the ability of the affected institutions to participate in Title IV Programs. If we were to undergo a change of control and our institutions failed to obtain the required approvals from applicable regulatory agencies in a timely manner, our student population, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows could be materially adversely affected.
When we acquire an institution that is eligible to participate in Title IV Programs, that institution typically undergoes a change of ownership resulting in a change of control as defined by the Department. Our acquired institutions in the past have undergone a certification review under our ownership and have been certified to participate in Title IV Programs on a provisional basis, per Department requirements, until such time that the Department signs a new program participation agreement with the institution. Currently, neither of our institutions is subject to provisional certification status due to the Department’s change of ownership criteria. The potential adverse effects of a change of control under Department regulations may influence future decisions by us and our stockholders regarding the sale, purchase, transfer, issuance or redemption of our common stock.
On October 28, 2022, the Department, as part of 2021-2022 negotiated rulemaking agenda, published Final Regulations on Change of Ownership. The Department added a definition of main campus as “the primary physical location where the institution offers programs, within the same ownership structure of the institution, and certified as the main campus by the department and the institution’s accrediting agency.” Also included is a required notification to the Department and students of planned change in ownership at least 90 days in advance. Lower reporting of ownership interest changes to 5%, instead of the current 25% threshold and the Department raised the threshold of full review of change in control from 25% ownership interest changes to 50%.
Opening New Institutions, Start-up Campuses and Adding Educational Programs
The Higher Education Act generally requires that for-profit institutions be fully operational for two years before applying to participate in Title IV Programs. However, an institution that is certified to participate in Title IV Programs may establish a start-up branch campus or location and participate in Title IV Programs at the start-up campus without reference to the two-year requirement if the start-up campus has received all of the necessary state and accrediting agency approvals, has been reported to the Department, and meets certain other criteria as defined by the Department. Nevertheless, under certain circumstances, a start-up branch campus may also be required to obtain approval from the Department to be able to participate in Title IV Programs.
In addition to the Department regulations, certain of the state and accrediting agencies with jurisdiction over our institutions have requirements that may affect our ability to open a new institution, open a start-up branch campus or location of one of our existing institutions, or begin offering a new educational program at one of our institutions. If we establish a new institution, add a new branch start-up campus, or expand program offerings at any of our institutions without obtaining the required approvals, we would likely be liable for repayment of Title IV Program funds provided to students at that institution or branch campus or enrolled in that educational program, and we could also be subject to sanctions. Also, if we are unable to obtain the approvals from the Department, applicable state regulatory agencies, and accrediting agencies for any new institutions, branch campuses, or program offerings where such approvals are required, or to obtain such approvals in a timely manner, our ability to grow our business would be impaired and our financial condition, results of operations and cash flows could be materially adversely affected.
Administrative Capability
The Department regulations specify extensive criteria that an institution must satisfy to establish that it has the requisite administrative capability to participate in Title IV Programs. These criteria relate to, among other things, institutional staffing, operational standards such as procedures for disbursing and safeguarding Title IV Program funds, timely submission of accurate reports to the Department and various other procedural matters. If an institution fails to satisfy any of the Department’s criteria for administrative capability, the Department may require the repayment of Title IV Program funds disbursed by the institution, place the institution on provisional certification status, require the institution to receive Title IV Program funds under another funding arrangement, impose fines or limit or terminate the participation of the institution in Title IV Programs.
Restrictions on Payment of Commissions, Bonuses and Other Incentive Payments
An institution participating in Title IV Programs cannot provide any commission, bonus, or other incentive payment based directly or indirectly on success in securing enrollments or Title IV financial aid to any persons or entities engaged in any student recruiting or admission activities or in making decisions regarding the award of student financial assistance. Regulations issued in October 2010 which became effective July 1, 2011 rescinded previously issued Department guidance and “safe harbors” relied upon by higher education institutions in making decisions how they managed, compensated and promoted individuals engaged in student recruiting and the awarding of financial aid and their supervisors. The elimination of these “safe harbor” protections and guidance required us to terminate certain compensation payments to our affected employees and to implement changes in contractual and other arrangements with third parties to change structures formerly allowed under Department rules, and has had an impact on our ability to compensate, recruit, retain and motivate affected admissions and other affected employees as well as on our business arrangements with third-party lead generators and other marketing vendors. In September 2016, the Department’s Office of Inspector General released a revised audit guide applicable specifically to for-profit schools that requires an annual audit to review compliance with the incentive compensation restrictions.
Further, the Department provided very limited published guidance regarding this rule and does not establish clear criteria for compliance for many circumstances. If the Department determined that an institution’s compensation practices violated these standards, the Department could subject the institution to substantial monetary fines, penalties or other sanctions.
Substantial Misrepresentation
The Higher Education Act prohibits an institution participating in Title IV Programs from engaging in substantial misrepresentation of the nature of its educational programs, financial charges, graduate employability or its relationship with the Department. Under the Department’s rules, a "misrepresentation" is any statement (made in writing, visually, orally or otherwise) made by the institution, any of its representatives or a third party that provides educational programs, marketing, advertising, recruiting, or admissions services to the institution, that is false, erroneous or has the likelihood or tendency to deceive, and a "substantial misrepresentation" is any misrepresentation on which the person to whom it was made could reasonably be expected to rely, or has reasonably relied, to that person’s detriment. Considering the broad definition of “substantial misrepresentation,” it is possible that, despite our training efforts and compliance programs, our institutions' employees or service providers may make statements that could be construed as substantial misrepresentations. If the Department determines that one of our institutions has engaged in substantial misrepresentation, the Department may revoke the institution’s program participation agreement, deny applications from the institution for approval of new programs or locations or other matters, or initiate proceedings under its borrower defense to repayment regulations to fine the institution or limit, suspend, or terminate its eligibility to participate in Title IV Programs; the institution could also be exposed to increased risk of action under the Federal False Claims Act.
OTHER INFORMATION
Our website address is www.perdoceoed.com. We make available within the “Investor Relations” portion of our website under the caption “Annual Reports and SEC Filings,” free of charge, our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and current reports on Form 8-K, including any amendments to those reports, as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file or furnish such materials to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). Also, the SEC maintains an Internet site at www.sec.gov that contains reports, proxy and information statements, and other information that we file electronically with the SEC. Information contained on our website is expressly not incorporated by reference into this Form 10-K.

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ITEM 1A. RISK FACTORS
Item 1A. RISK FACTORS
Risks Related to the Highly Regulated Field in Which We Operate
Compliance with the extensive regulatory requirements applicable to our business can be costly and time consuming, and failure to comply could result in financial penalties, restrictions on our operations, loss of federal and state financial aid funding for our students, or loss of our authorization to operate our institutions.
As a provider of postsecondary education and a participant in federal and state programs providing financial assistance to students, we are subject to extensive laws and regulation at both the federal and state levels and by accrediting agencies. These requirements cover virtually all aspects of our business.
In particular, the Higher Education Act (“HEA”) authorizes Title IV Programs and subjects participants to extensive regulation by the Department of Education (the “Department”), state education agencies and accrediting agencies. Additionally, our institutions’ participation in education assistance programs administered by the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs also subjects us to oversight by those agencies. In addition, other federal agencies such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) and the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) and various state agencies and state attorneys general enforce a broad range of consumer protection and other laws applicable to activities of postsecondary educational institutions, such as recruiting, marketing, the protection of personal information, student financing and payment servicing.
Because of these regulatory requirements, we are subject to compliance reviews and audits, claims of noncompliance and lawsuits by government agencies, students, employees and other third parties. These matters often require the expenditure of substantial time and resources to address and may damage our reputation, even if such actions are eventually determined to be without merit. For example, the Department has broad powers to request information and review records of an institution participating in Title IV Programs. These requests can be open ended and do not necessarily relate to any specific allegations of wrongdoing or even assert any compliance failures of any kind. We received such a request in December 2021. Due process safeguards and protections for institutions subjected to this type of information request are limited to the Department’s interpretation of the limits of its authority over institutions participating in Title IV programs.
The Department under the current Presidential administration has taken an expansive view on its authority over the administration of Title IV programs, institutions and loans and have overruled or ignored a number of historical limiting precedents and due process safeguards. The Department has partnered with advocacy groups critical of the for-profit education sector in numerous aspects of its agenda which have lobbied for targeting the sector and our schools. It has also hired a number individuals that are critical of for-profit education into senior level positions within the Department. All of the above factors as well as recent and future rulemaking and the absence of transparency from the Department combined with the Presidential administration’s stated ambition to discharge a maximum amount of student loans have created a challenging and, in some cases, uncertain regulatory environment for the sector and could lead the Department to take actions to limit or suspend institutions, including ours, with little or no warning or due process protections.
In addition to responding to compliance reviews and audits and other informational requests, we have had significant matters pending against us in the past which have resulted in the payment of significant amounts to settle the matters and our agreement to ongoing compliance and operational oversight. In this regard, see Item I, “Business - Accreditation, State Regulation and Other Compliance Matters - Other Compliance Matters,” for discussion of agreements undertaken in connection with several matters resolved in recent years.
Compliance with reviews and audits and applicable laws, regulations, standards or policies may impose significant burdens and a failure to comply could result in financial penalties, restrictions on our operations, loss of federal and state financial aid funding for our students, or loss of authorization to operate our institutions.
If the Department denies, or significantly conditions, recertification of either of our institutions to participate in Title IV Programs, that institution could not conduct its business as it is currently conducted.
Under the provisions of the Higher Education Act, an institution must apply to the Department for continued certification to participate in Title IV Programs at least every six years or when it undergoes a change of control. Generally, the recertification process includes a review by the Department of an institution’s educational programs and locations, administrative capability, financial responsibility, and other oversight categories. AIUS and CTU are currently in a recertification process with the Department, and AIUS is currently operating on a provisional program participation agreement due to open regulatory review processes with the Department at the time of its prior recertification. During the period of provisional certification, an institution must obtain prior Department approval to add an educational program, open a new location, or make any other significant change, which could negatively impact AIUS’s ability to take these actions.
If the Department finds that any of our institutions do not fully satisfy all required eligibility and certification standards, the Department could deny recertification or limit, suspend, or terminate the institution’s participation in Title IV Programs. Continued Title IV program eligibility is critical to the operation of our business. If either of our institutions becomes ineligible to participate in
Title IV Programs, or have that participation significantly conditioned, it could not conduct its business as currently conducted and we would experience a dramatic decline in revenue.
We are dependent on the renewal and maintenance of Title IV Programs.
A substantial majority of our students rely upon Title IV Programs to assist in financing their education, and we derive a substantial majority of our revenue and cash flows from Title IV Programs. For example, for the year ended December 31, 2022, a majority of our students who were in a program of study at any date during that year participated in Title IV Programs, which resulted in Title IV Program cash receipts of approximately $511 million. As a result, any legislative or regulatory action that significantly reduces Title IV Program funding or the ability of our students to participate, or that places significant additional burdens on or eliminates our ability to participate, would materially reduce the number of students who enroll at our institutions, our revenue and our profitability, and we would be unable to continue our business as it currently is conducted.
The extensive regulatory requirements applicable to our business may change, in particular as a result of the scrutiny of the for-profit postsecondary education sector and efforts of the Biden administration, which could require us to make substantial changes to our business, reduce our profitability and make compliance more difficult.
The regulations, standards and policies of our regulators change frequently and are subject to interpretation, and interpretations may change over time or due to changes in presidential administrations. In particular, the Department has announced and is in the process of promulgating a substantial number of new regulations that impact our business, including but not limited to a third version of the “borrower defense to repayment” regulations discussed in a separate risk factor below.
The U.S. Congress is required to periodically reauthorize the HEA and other laws governing Title IV Programs and annually determines the funding level for each Title IV Program. See Item 1, “Business-Student Financial Aid and Related Federal Regulation-Legislative Action and Recent Department Regulatory Initiatives,” for more information about the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. In recent years, Congress, the Department, states, accrediting agencies, the CFPB, the FTC, state attorneys general, and the media have scrutinized the for-profit postsecondary education sector. See Item 1, “Business-Student Financial Aid and Related Federal Regulation-Scrutiny of the For-Profit Postsecondary Education Sector,” for more information about the focus on our industry. This scrutiny and efforts of the Biden administration led to significant regulatory changes. The Department has enacted and is continuing to pursue significant rulemaking initiatives that are likely to negatively impact our business. See Item 1, “Business-Student Financial Aid and Related Federal Regulation-Legislative Action and Recent Department Regulatory Initiatives,” for an overview of regulatory initiatives by the Department. Ongoing efforts by activists to change SARA reciprocity rules to allow a greater patchwork of state-by-state standards could increase regulatory burdens on our business. See Item 1, “Business - Accreditation, State Regulation and Other Compliance Matters - State Regulation,” for more information about state regulation and SARA.
The Department issued a Dear Colleague Letter on February 15, 2023 that updated its existing guidance to significantly expand its interpretation of the types of service providers that qualify as participating in the administration of Title IV funds under the definition of a “Third Party Servicer.” The Department indicated its new interpretations are effective immediately. We may have service providers that elect to discontinue working with our institutions in light of the additional costs, administrative burdens and/or risk imposed by having to comply with Title IV requirements applicable to Third Party Servicers which include annual compliance audits and contractual commitments to joint and several liability with the institution. Many of these ancillary support services have not traditionally had any role related to the administration of Title IV funds, but may in some limited way interact with or have access to provide support for our students. We are assessing the support provided by various service providers against this updated guidance but are unable to determine the potential impact it may have on our business at this time.
As in the past, recent and future regulatory changes may have significant impacts on our business, potentially requiring a large number of operational changes, changes to and elimination of certain educational programs, or other fundamental changes to our business. These actions may reduce our student enrollments and profitability or limit our ability to maintain or grow our business. These recent and future regulatory changes may also make compliance with regulatory requirements even more complex and difficult.
Our institutions could lose their eligibility to participate in federal student financial aid programs, face limitations on their ability to serve new or former students or have other limitations placed upon them if the percentage of their revenues derived from certain federal programs is too high.
Under revised regulations effective for calendar year 2023, any of our institutions may lose eligibility to participate in Title IV Programs if, on modified cash basis accounting, the percentage of the cash receipts derived from federal funding programs for two consecutive fiscal years is greater than 90%. The Department specified the sources of federal funding to be included in the 90-10 Rule in mid-December 2022, well after a substantial majority of students for the upcoming 2023 calendar year, a majority of those students which were in the process of continuing through their program, had already enrolled and elected financing for upcoming classes. Federal funding now includes tuition assistance under the Title IV program as well as tuition assistance benefits provided to members of the military and veterans as well as a significant number of other federal programs supporting higher education and training. Under this modified 90-10 Rule, an institution that derives more than 90% of its cash receipts from federal funding sources for any fiscal year will be placed on provisional participation status for its next two fiscal years. We have substantially no control over the amount of Title IV student loans and grants, military or veteran education benefits, or other Federal education assistance funds sought by or
awarded to our students. Additionally, we may not know at the time of receipt that funding used by a student was derived from a federal program. In addition, if the institution violates the 90-10 Rule for two consecutive fiscal years and becomes ineligible to participate in Title IV Programs, but continues to disburse Title IV Program funds, the Department would require the repayment of all Title IV Program funds received by it after the effective date of the loss of eligibility.
Several factors such as the increase in Title IV Program aid availability, including year-round Pell Grant funds, and budget-related reductions in state grant programs, workforce training programs, and other alternative funding sources have adversely affected our institutions' 90-10 Rule percentages in recent years, and we expect this negative impact to continue. Additionally, the lack of visibility into potential federal fund sources students may be using, the timing of the identification of the federal fund sources applicable to the 90-10 Rule, the lack of clarity regarding the definition of federal funds and those funds counting in the “10” as well as some of the technical aspects of the calculation methodology under the 90-10 Rule, interest levels and variability in the timing of receipts of future cash payments made for allowable non-Title IV programs offered by our institutions, all make it difficult to predict future compliance with the 90-10 Rule. We have implemented various measures intended to reduce the percentage of our institutions’ cash basis revenue attributable to designated federal funding sources, including efforts to diversify the sources of our revenue. However, these measures may not be adequate to prevent our institutions' 90-10 Rule percentages from exceeding 90% in the future, and may not be sufficient to allow our institutions to serve degree seeking prospective students at the same rates as we have historically or may require limiting the type or volume of new students we enroll or programs we offer. We may be required to modify our business operations, including reducing our investments in advertising, in order to preserve our existing students’ ability to continue benefitting from financial assistance for their education pursuant to Title IV Programs. Any necessary business changes could materially impact our revenue, operating costs and opportunities for growth. Furthermore, these business changes could make more difficult our ability to comply with other important regulatory requirements.
The ability of our institutions to comply with the 90-10 Rule will depend upon the composition of our future student population and their personal circumstances, as well as on regulatory changes and other factors outside of our control, including any increases or reductions in federally funded education assistance.
The Department may attempt to impose additional sanctions on institutions that fail the 90-10 Rule limit, but there is only limited precedent available to determine their legality or predict what those additional sanctions might be in the future. The Department could specify a wide range of additional conditions as part of the provisional certification and the institutions' continued participation in Title IV Programs. These conditions may include, but are not limited to, restrictions on the total amount of Title IV Program funds that may be distributed to students attending the institutions; restrictions on programmatic and geographic expansion; requirements to obtain and post letters of credit; and additional reporting requirements to include additional interim financial or enrollment reporting.
See Item 1, “Business - Student Financial Aid and Related Federal Regulation - Compliance with Federal Regulatory Standards and Effect of Federal Regulatory Violations - ‘90-10 Rule,’” for more information about the 90-10 Rule and the measures we have implemented to improve our compliance.
If any of our institutions lose eligibility to participate in Title IV Programs due to violation of the prior or modified 90-10 Rule, the institution would experience a dramatic decline in revenue and would be unable to continue its business as it currently is conducted. Efforts to reduce the 90-10 Rule percentage for our institutions have and may in the future involve taking measures that reduce our revenue, increase our operating expenses or involve interpretations of the 90-10 Rule or other Title IV regulations that are without clear precedent (or all of the foregoing, in each case perhaps significantly).
“Borrower defense to repayment” regulations, including closed school loan discharges, may subject us to significant repayment liability to the Department for discharged federal student loans and posting of substantial letters of credit that may limit our ability to make investments in our business which could negatively impact our future growth.
On November 1, 2016, the Department adopted regulations that cover multiple enforcement issues, including revised processes and standards for the discharge of student loans for borrowers commonly referred to as “borrower defense to repayment” regulations. Changes made to the borrower defense to repayment regulations, as well as to the closed school loan discharge regulations, are extensive and generally will make it easier for student borrowers to obtain discharges of their loans and for the Department to attempt to assess liabilities and other sanctions against institutions based on loan discharges. Included in the 2016 regulations were expansions of the Department’s authority to process group discharge claims and authority to seek recoupment from institutions. On September 23, 2019, the Department published revised final borrower defense to repayment regulations that became effective on July 1, 2020. The processes and standards that apply are determined by the date a student loan is disbursed, and student loans disbursed before July 1, 2017 followed the Department’s original discharge standards and processes that specify that a borrower may assert a defense to repayment based on an act or omission by the school that would give rise to a cause of action under state law. On November 1, 2022, the Department published further revised borrower defense to repayment regulations that will become effective on July 1, 2023, with the express purpose of making it easier for students to have their loans discharged and to streamline the process of recoupment of discharged loan funds from institutions. The new regulations expanded the types of conduct that could support a successful borrower defense to repayment claim, including expanding the types of substantial misrepresentations that could support a claim and providing new sections addressing substantial omissions of fact, aggressive and deceptive recruitment, and adverse actions by the Department
against institutions. Further, the processes and standards for a loan discharge are no longer governed by the loan disbursal date. Effective July 1, 2023, the new loan discharge processes and standards will apply to all future and pending discharge applications. In addition, the Department reinstated the group claims process and created a “third-party requester” process, which allows state attorneys general and legal aid organizations to file group claims on a borrower’s behalf.
On November 16, 2022, a California federal court in Sweet v. Cardona, No. 3:19-cv-3674 (N.D. Cal.) approved a settlement agreement entered into by the Department in a class action lawsuit that challenges the way the Department has been dealing with borrower defense applications over the past few years (“Sweet Settlement”). The Sweet Settlement would provide a streamlined path to debt forgiveness for former students of over 150 schools, including AIUS, CTU, and institutions of ours that have previously closed. Neither the Company nor our current or former institutions are a party to this lawsuit. The Department has neither identified the number of claims nor the specific claims covered by the Sweet Settlement that are related to our institutions. It is unclear whether the Department would seek to impose liabilities on us or our institutions based on relief provided to our former students under the settlement agreement. Because the process agreed to by the Department in the Sweet Settlement does not follow the claim adjudication procedures set out in applicable regulations, it is uncertain whether the Department will seek recoupment against the Company or our institutions for claims covered by the Sweet Settlement.
During May 2021, the Department began providing us with borrower defense applications that assert claims regarding our institutions, including institutions that have ceased operations. The initial volume of several thousand has continued to significantly expand as the Department and outside interest groups have continued to promote different pathways for students to receive loan forgiveness or loan discharge. Despite our belief expressed in responses submitted to the Department that the applications fail to establish a valid borrower defense and the Department should therefore deny them, the Department has already agreed in the Sweet Settlement to discharge most of the applications we are aware of. Almost all of the applications we have been provided to date would be covered by procedures set forth in the Sweet Settlement. It remains unclear what loan discharge applications the Department may grant in the future and whether they will assert repayment claims against us regardless of the date the student loan was disbursed and the corresponding discharge standards and processes. Our defenses to the asserted repayment liability may not succeed. See Item 1, “Business - Student Financial Aid and Related Federal Regulation - Compliance with Federal Regulatory Standards and Effect of Federal Regulatory Violations - Borrower Defense to Repayment,” for more information about the borrower defense to repayment regulations and our responses to these applications.
In addition to a borrower defense to repayment discharge of student loans based on an act or omission by a school, Department regulations provide that upon the closure of an institution participating in the Title IV Programs, including any location thereof, certain students who had attended such an institution or location may be eligible to obtain a “closed school loan discharge” of their federal student loans related to attendance at that institution or location, if they do not complete their educational programs at another location or online, or through transfer or teach-out with other postsecondary institutions. In order to obtain a closed school loan discharge, a student generally must have been enrolled or on an approved leave of absence within 180 days from when the institution or location closed. Under Department regulations published on October 31, 2022, which take effect on July 1, 2023, the Department may grant automatic closed school loan discharges to students who do not re-enroll in another Title IV-participating institution within one year after becoming unable to complete their educational program due to a closure of their institution or institutional location. Recently, the Department has asserted loan discharge claims against us relating to closed campuses in our former All Other Campuses reporting segment for select students that withdrew or were dismissed from school just prior to a campus closure, despite the availability of a teach-out and opportunity to complete or other mitigating factors. In addition, pursuant to our acquisition of substantially all of the assets of Trident University, Trident University’s operations were brought within the scope of AIUS’ state licensure, accreditation and Department approval, with Trident University relinquishing its accreditor and Department approvals. As a result, we may incur closed school discharge liabilities if Trident University students do not complete their educational program after the closing of the transaction.
The Department’s interpretation and enforcement of the different versions of the borrower defense to repayment regulations, additional rule modifications regarding these regulations and other regulations regarding loan discharges, and the change in Department administration and policy objectives, has led to increased enforcement activities by the Department. For example, on February 16, 2022, the Department announced that nearly 16,000 borrowers will receive $415 million in borrower defense to repayment discharges for several institutions following the approval of four new findings and the continued review of claims. This includes approximately 1,800 former DeVry University students who will receive approximately $71.7 million in full borrower defense discharges, with the Department anticipating an increase in these amounts. DeVry University is a for-profit postsecondary institution, and the Department noted in its announcement that these are the first approved borrower defense claims associated with a currently operating institution and that it will seek to recoup the cost of the discharges from DeVry University. If the Department determines, despite the Sweet Settlement, that a significant number of borrowers who attended our current, former, or acquired institutions have a defense to repayment of their student loans, and successfully asserts recoupment against the Company or its institutions, we could be subject to significant repayment liability to the Department, which may limit our ability to make investments in our business and negatively impact our future growth.
In addition to potential liability associated with loan discharges, both the 2016 and 2019 borrower defense to repayment regulations include discussion of triggering events that may provide the Department discretion regarding periodic determinations of
our financial responsibility and associated enhanced financial protection in the form of a letter of credit or other security it determines it needs. The 2022 negotiated rulemaking proposed changes to the financial responsibility regulations - including additional triggering events - but the Department has yet to publish a final rule on this topic. If in the future we are required to post a letter of credit pursuant to the borrower defense to repayment regulations, we may not have the capacity to do so. Even if we are able to post a required letter of credit, doing so may limit our ability to make investments in our business which could negatively impact our future growth.
We cannot predict the impact various defense to repayment regulations will have on student enrollments, the volume of claims for loan discharge (including closed school discharge), the amount of claims for loan discharge the Department approves, the amount of discharged loans the Department asserts we have repayment liability for, our future financial responsibility as determined by the Department, or any sanctions or other actions the Department might take against our institutions based on loans discharged, all of which could be materially adverse to our business.
Our institutions would lose their ability to participate in Title IV Programs if they fail to maintain their institutional accreditation, and our student enrollments could decline if certain of our programs fail to obtain or maintain programmatic accreditation.
An institution must be accredited by an accrediting agency recognized by the Department in order to participate in Title IV Programs. See Item 1, “Business - Accreditation, Jurisdictional Authorizations and Other Compliance Matters - Institutional Accreditation.” The failure to comply with accreditation standards will subject an institution to additional oversight and reporting requirements, accreditation proceedings such as a show-cause directive, an action to defer or deny action related to an institution's application for a new grant of accreditation, an action to suspend an institution's accreditation or a program's approval, or other negative actions. Future inquiries or actions by state or federal agencies could impact our accreditation status. If our institutions or programs are subject to accreditation actions or are placed on probationary or other negative accreditation status, we may experience adverse publicity, impaired ability to attract and retain students and substantial expense to obtain unqualified accreditation status. The inability to obtain reaccreditation following periodic reviews or any final loss of institutional accreditation after exhaustion of the administrative agency processes would result in a loss of Title IV Program funds for the affected institution and its students. In addition, if an accrediting body of our institutions loses recognition by the Department, that institution could lose its ability to participate in Title IV Programs. See Item 1, "Business - Student Financial Aid and Related Federal Regulation - Eligibility and Certification by the Department," for more information.
Many states and professional associations require professional programs to be accredited. While programmatic accreditation is not a sufficient basis to qualify for institutional Title IV Program certification, programmatic accreditation may be a prerequisite for or improve employment opportunities for program graduates in their chosen field. Those of our programs that do not have such programmatic accreditation, where available, or fail to maintain such accreditation, may experience adverse publicity, declining enrollments, litigation or other claims from students or suffer other adverse impacts, which could result in it being impractical for us to continue offering such programs.
A failure to demonstrate "financial responsibility" or "administrative capability" would have negative impacts on our operations.
All higher education institutions participating in Title IV Programs must, among other things, satisfy financial and administrative standards. Failure to meet these standards may subject an institution to: (1) additional monitoring and reporting procedures, the costs of which may be significant,; (2) alterations in the timing and process for receipt of cash pursuant to Title IV Programs; (3) a requirement to submit an irrevocable letter of credit to the Department in an amount equal to 10-100% of the Title IV Program funds received during its most recently completed fiscal year, which we may not have the capacity to provide; or (4) provisional certification for up to three years, in each case depending on the level of compliance with the standards and the Department’s discretion. See Item 1, “Business - Student Financial Aid and Related Federal Regulation - Compliance with Federal Regulatory Standards and Effect of Federal Regulatory Violations,” for more information.
Accreditor and state regulatory requirements also address financial responsibility and administrative capability, and these requirements vary among agencies and also may differ from Department requirements. Any developments relating to our satisfaction of the Department's financial responsibility requirements or administrative capability may lead to additional focus or review by our accreditors or applicable state agencies regarding their respective financial responsibility requirements.
If our institutions fail to maintain financial responsibility or administrative capability, they could lose their eligibility to participate in Title IV Programs, have that eligibility adversely conditioned or be subject to similar negative consequences under accreditor and state regulatory requirements, which would have a material adverse effect on our operations. In particular, limitations on participation in Title IV Programs resulting from the failure to demonstrate financial responsibility or administrative capability could materially reduce the enrollments and revenue at the impacted institution, and a termination of participation would cause a dramatic decline in revenue and we would be unable to continue our business as it currently is conducted.
If our institutions fail to maintain adequate systems and processes to detect and prevent fraudulent activity in student enrollment and financial aid, our institutions may lose the ability to participate in Title IV programs, or have participation in these programs conditioned or limited.
Our institutions must maintain systems and processes to identify and prevent fraudulent applications for enrollment and financial aid. We cannot be certain that our institutions’ systems and processes will continue to be adequate in the face of increasingly sophisticated fraud schemes, or that we will be able to expand such systems and processes at a pace consistent with the changing nature of these fraud schemes. We believe the risk of outside parties attempting to perpetrate fraud in connection with the award and disbursement of Title IV program funds, including as a result of identity theft, is heightened due to being an exclusively online education provider.
The Department requires institutions that participate in Title IV programs to refer to the Department of Education Office of the Inspector General, credible information about fraud or other illegal conduct involving Title IV programs. If the systems and processes that our institutions have established to detect and prevent fraud are inadequate, the Department may find that our institutions do not satisfy the Department’s administrative capability requirements, which could have the adverse effects described in the risk factor captioned “A failure to demonstrate "financial responsibility" or "administrative capability" would have negative impacts on our operations.” In addition, our ability to participate in Title IV programs is conditioned on maintaining accreditation by an accrediting agency that is recognized by the Department. Any significant failure to adequately detect fraudulent activity related to student enrollment and financial aid could cause us to fail to meet accreditors’ standards. Furthermore, accrediting agencies that evaluate institutions offering online programs, must require such institutions to have processes through which the institution establishes that a student who registers for such a program is the same student who participates in and receives credit for the program. Failure to meet the requirements of our institutions’ accrediting agencies could result in the loss of accreditation of one or more of our institutions, which could result in their loss of eligibility to participate in Title IV programs.
Our agreements with multiple state attorneys general and the FTC may lead to unexpected impacts on our student enrollments or higher than anticipated expenses, a failure to comply may lead to additional enforcement actions and continued scrutiny may result in additional costs or new enforcement actions.
As discussed above, states and other regulatory bodies have increased their focus on the for-profit postsecondary education sector. This includes increased activity by state attorneys general and the FTC in their review of the sector. In recent years, we entered into various agreements with state attorneys general and the FTC to bring closure to inquiries by them. See Item 1, “Business - Accreditation, State Regulation and Other Compliance Matters - Other Compliance Matters” for information about these agreements. These agreements could ultimately result in negative impacts on our business, any one of which could be material. For example, pursuant to the 2019 agreements with the attorneys general we agreed to work with a third-party administrator that reports annually on our compliance with various obligations under these agreements. Any negative findings by the third-party administrator may result in negative consequences to us, such as an extension of the time period during which we must work with the third-party administrator or an action by one or more attorneys general seeking enforcement of the agreements. Further, our provision of materials and information in accordance with the terms of the agreements that do not align with those provided by other institutions could negatively impact student decisions to enroll or remain enrolled at our institutions. Pursuant to the agreement with the FTC, we agreed to various operating provisions including the operation of a system to monitor lead aggregators and generators involving a compliance review by, or on behalf of, the Company of the various sources a prospective student interacts with prior to the Company’s purchase and use of the prospective student lead. The compliance costs related to these agreements may be greater than anticipated and may have a negative impact on our ability to compete effectively and maintain and grow student enrollments at our institutions, and a failure to comply may lead to additional enforcement actions by the state attorneys general and the FTC. In addition, we continue to receive requests from state and other regulatory bodies to provide ongoing proof that we are complying with applicable law and regulations and meeting our contractual obligations pursuant to these agreements. Compliance with these requests results in significant additional costs and a failure to respond, whether required or not, could result in additional enforcement actions.
If we are unable to successfully resolve pending or future litigation and regulatory and governmental inquiries involving us, or face increased regulatory actions or litigation, our financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected.
We have been named as defendants in the past and/or currently in various lawsuits, investigations and claims covering a range of matters, including, but not limited to, violations of the federal securities laws, breaches of fiduciary duty and claims made by current and former students and employees of our institutions. Current claims include a qui tam action filed in federal court by an individual plaintiff on behalf of themselves and the federal government alleging that we submitted false claims or statements to the Department in violation of the False Claims Act. Qui tam actions are filed under seal, and remain under seal until the government decides whether it will intervene in the case. If the government elects to intervene in an action, it assumes primary control of that matter; if the government elects not to intervene, then individual plaintiffs may continue the litigation at their own expense on behalf of the government. See Note 12 "Contingencies" to our consolidated financial statements for discussion of these and certain other current matters. Additional actions may arise in the future.
Given the highly regulated nature of our industry, we and our institutions are also subject to and have regular audits, compliance reviews, inquiries, investigations, and claims of non-compliance by the Department, federal and state regulatory agencies, accrediting agencies, state attorney general offices, present and former students and employees, and others that may allege violations of statutes, regulations, accreditation standards, consumer protection and other legal and regulatory requirements applicable to us or our institutions. See Note 12 "Contingencies" to our consolidated financial statements and Item 1, "Business - Student Financial Aid and Related Federal Regulation - Compliance with Federal Regulatory Standards and Effect of Federal Regulatory Violations" for
additional discussion of these and certain other current matters. If the results of any such audits, reviews, inquiries, investigations, claims, or actions are unfavorable to us, we may be required to pay monetary damages or be subject to fines, operational limitations, loss of federal funding, injunctions, undertakings, additional oversight and reporting, or other civil or criminal penalties.
Even if we maintain compliance with applicable governmental and accrediting body regulations, increased regulatory scrutiny or adverse publicity arising from allegations of non-compliance may increase our costs of regulatory compliance and adversely affect our financial results, growth rates and prospects.
We are subject to a variety of other claims and litigation that arise from time to time alleging non-compliance with or violations of state or federal regulatory matters including, but not limited to, claims involving students, graduates and employees. In the event the extensive changes in the overall federal and state regulatory construct results in additional statutory or regulatory bases for these types of matters, or other events result in more of such claims or unfavorable outcomes to such claims, there exists the possibility of a material adverse impact on our business, reputation, financial position, cash flows and results of operations for the periods in which the effects of any such matter or matters becomes probable and reasonably estimable.
We cannot predict the ultimate outcome of these and future matters and expect to continue to incur significant defense costs and other expenses in connection with them. We may be required to pay substantial damages or settlement costs in excess of our insurance coverage related to these matters. Government investigations and any related legal and administrative proceedings may result in the institution of administrative, civil injunctive or criminal proceedings against us and/or our current or former directors, officers or employees, or the imposition of significant fines, penalties or suspensions, or other remedies and sanctions. Any such costs and expenses could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations and the market price of our common stock.
We need timely approval by applicable regulatory agencies to offer new programs or make substantive changes to existing programs.
Our institutions frequently need to obtain approvals from regulatory agencies in the conduct of their business. For example, to establish a new educational program or substantive changes to existing programs, we are required to obtain the appropriate approvals from the Department and applicable state and accrediting regulatory agencies. Staffing levels at the Department and other regulatory agencies and the volume of applications and other requests may delay our receipt of necessary approvals. Further, approvals may be conditioned or denied in a manner that could significantly affect our strategic plans and future growth. Approval by these regulatory agencies may also be negatively impacted due to regulatory inquiries or reviews and any adverse publicity relating to such matters or the industry generally.
If our institutions become ineligible to participate in educational assistance programs benefitting military or veteran personnel, it could have a material negative impact on student enrollments and could have other adverse consequences.
Some students at our institutions receive education-related benefits pursuant to programs for military or veteran personnel. If any decision is made that reduces our institutions’ eligibility to participate in educational assistance programs benefitting military or veteran personnel, and if appeals to that decision are not successful, we could experience a material decline in student enrollments and revenue.
Risks Related to Our Business
Our financial performance depends on the level of student enrollments in our institutions.
Enrollment of students at our institutions is impacted by many of the regulatory risks discussed above and business risks discussed below, many of which are beyond our control. We also believe that the level of our student enrollments is affected by changes in economic conditions, although the nature and magnitude of this effect are uncertain and may change over time. For example, during periods when the unemployment rate declines or remains stable, prospective students may have more employment options, leading them to choose to work rather than to pursue postsecondary education. On the other hand, high unemployment rates may affect the willingness of students to incur loans to pay for postsecondary education or to pursue postsecondary education in general.
Affordability concerns and negative perception of the value of a college degree increase reluctance to take on debt and make it more challenging for us to attract and retain students. We may experience decreasing enrollments in our institutions due to changing demographic trends in family size, overall declines in enrollment in postsecondary institutions, job growth in fields unrelated to our core disciplines or other societal factors. Further, we continue to make investments in and changes to our business which are designed to improve student experiences, retention and academic outcomes and support the long-term sustainable and responsible growth of our institutions. These initiative may not be successful or the success of these initiatives may reduce over time.
Our student enrollments could suffer from any of these circumstances. It is likely that legislative, regulatory, and economic uncertainties will continue, and thus it is difficult to assess our long-term growth prospects. Reduced enrollments at our institutions, for any of the reasons mentioned or otherwise, generally reduce our profitability, which, depending on the level of the decline, could be material.
We compete with a variety of educational institutions, especially in the online education market, and if we are unable to compete effectively, our student enrollments and revenue could be adversely impacted.
The postsecondary education industry is highly fragmented and increasingly competitive. Our institutions compete with traditional public and private two-year and four-year colleges and universities, other for-profit institutions, other online education providers, and alternatives to higher education, such as immediate employment and military service. Some public and private institutions charge lower tuition for courses of study similar to those offered by our institutions due, in part, to government subsidies, government and foundation grants, tax-deductible contributions and other financial resources not available to for-profit institutions, and this competition may increase if additional subsidies or resources become available to those institutions. For example, a typical community college is subsidized by local or state government and, as a result, tuition rates for associate’s degree programs may be much lower at community colleges than at our institutions. Most states have adopted or proposed programs to enable residents to attend community colleges for free.
Some of our competitors are more widely known and have more established reputations than our institutions. In addition, some of our competitors are subject to fewer regulatory burdens on enrollment and financial aid processes, which may enable them to compete more effectively for potential students. In particular, some of our publicly traded for-profit competitors have converted to a structure where a for-profit service company provides services to a non-profit educational institution, which reduces the impact of certain regulations on their operations, such as the 90-10 Rule.
We also expect to experience increased competition as more postsecondary education providers increase their online program offerings (in particular programs that are geared towards the needs of working adults), including traditional and community colleges that had not previously offered online education programs, and increase their use of personalized learning technologies. This trend has been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic and companies that provide and/or manage online learning platforms for traditional colleges and community colleges. Increased competition may create greater pricing or operating pressure on us, which could have a material adverse effect on our institutions' enrollments, revenues and profit margins. We may also face increased competition in maintaining and developing new corporate partnerships and other relationships with employers, particularly as employers become more selective as to which online universities they will encourage or offer scholarships to their employees to attend and from which online universities they will hire prospective employees.
Congress, the Department and other agencies have required increasing disclosure of information to prospective students (with some disclosures only required by for-profit institutions), and our agreements with multiple state attorneys general require additional disclosures that are not required by our competitors. Some of these disclosures may negatively impact a prospective student’s decision to enroll in one of our institutions.
An increase in competition, particularly from traditional colleges with well-established reputations for excellence, may affect the success of our recruiting efforts to enroll and retain students who are likely to succeed in our educational programs, or cause us to reduce our tuition rates and increase our marketing and other recruiting expenses, which could adversely impact our profitability and cash flows.
Our financial performance depends on our ability to develop awareness among, and enroll and retain, students in our institutions and programs in a cost-effective manner.
If our institutions are unable to successfully market and advertise their educational programs, our institutions' ability to attract and enroll prospective students in those programs could be adversely affected. We have been investing in our student admissions and advising functions and other initiatives to improve student experiences, retention and academic outcomes. If these initiatives do not continue to succeed, our ability to attract, enroll and retain students in our programs could be adversely affected. Further, Internet and other technology, including data gathering and marketing and advertising, is changing fast and we may be unable to adapt our initiatives to attract, enroll and retain students in a timely manner. Consequently, our ability to increase revenue or maintain profitability could be impaired. Some of the factors that could prevent us from successfully marketing our institutions and the programs that they offer include, but are not limited to: student or employer dissatisfaction with our educational programs and services; diminished access to prospective students; our failure to maintain or expand our brand names or other factors related to our marketing or advertising practices; FTC or Federal Communications Commission restrictions on contacting prospective students, Internet, mobile phone and other advertising and marketing media; costs and effectiveness of Internet, mobile phone and other advertising programs; and changing media preferences of our target audiences.
We use third-party lead aggregators and generators to help us identify prospective students. The practices of some lead aggregators and generators have been questioned by various regulatory bodies, which could lead to changes in the quality and number of prospective student leads provided by these lead aggregators and generators as well as the cost thereof, which could in turn result in a reduction in the number of students we enroll. Further, the highly regulated nature of the postsecondary education industry and the resulting compliance measures undertaken by the industry are burdensome and some lead aggregators may choose not to work with us in favor of providing their services to different industries. In addition, the number of lead aggregators and generators has reduced over time due to consolidation in that industry, and this could exaggerate the indirect impact on us of any negative developments within that industry or with respect to any lead aggregator or generator with which we do business.
We may not be able to retain our key personnel or hire, train and retain the personnel we need to sustain and grow our business.
Our future success depends largely on the skills, efforts and motivation of our executive officers and other key personnel, as well as on our ability to attract and retain qualified managers and our institutions' ability to attract and retain qualified faculty members and administrators. If any of our executive officers leave the Company, it may be difficult to hire a replacement with similar experience and skills due to the highly regulated nature of our business. The political and regulatory uncertainty facing the for-profit postsecondary education industry may make it difficult to retain key personnel, in particular long-tenured senior officers. Loss of key personnel in the future could impact our growth, lead to changes in or create uncertainty about our business strategies or otherwise impact management's attention to operations.
Our success and ability to grow depends on the ability to hire, train and retain significant numbers of talented people. We face competition from companies in postsecondary education and other industries in attracting, hiring and retaining personnel who possess the combination of skills and experiences that we seek to implement our business strategy. In particular, our performance is dependent upon the availability and retention of qualified personnel for our student support operations. The negative publicity surrounding our industry sometimes makes it difficult and more expensive to attract, hire and retain qualified and experienced personnel, and the Department’s regulations related to incentive compensation affect our ability to compensate admissions and financial aid personnel. Our ability to effectively train our student support personnel and the length of time it takes them to become productive also impacts our results of operations. In addition, as a result of the overall tightening of the labor market and the competitive world for quality employees that has emerged during the pandemic, we have had increasing difficulty in filling our open positions. This may result in additional costs in the future as we are required to provide increased compensation in order to attract and retain qualified employees.
Regulatory changes impacting the for-profit postsecondary education sector may require us to make substantial changes to our business and explore alternative business strategies to maintain or grow our business. If our executive officers and other key personnel lack experience necessary to support these changes, we may be unable to timely attract the talent that we need.
Key personnel may leave us and subsequently compete against us after any period they are contractually obligated not to pursue such activities. The loss of the services of our key personnel, or our failure to attract, train and retain other qualified and experienced personnel on acceptable terms and in a timely manner could adversely affect our results of operations and growth prospects.
Our financial performance depends, in part, on our ability to keep pace with changing market needs and technology.
Increasingly, prospective employers of students who graduate from our institutions demand that their new employees possess appropriate technological skills and also appropriate “soft” skills, such as communication, critical thinking and teamwork skills. These desired skills can evolve rapidly in a changing economic and technological environment, so it is important for our institutions’ educational programs to evolve in response to those economic and technological changes. Current or prospective students or the employers of our graduates may not accept expansion of our existing programs, improved program content and the development of new programs. Students and faculty increasingly rely on personal communication devices and expect that we will be able to adapt our information technology platforms and our educational delivery methods to support these devices and any new technologies that may develop. Even if our institutions are able to develop acceptable new and improved programs in a cost-effective manner, our institutions may not be able to begin offering them as quickly as prospective students and employers would like or as quickly as our competitors offer similar programs. If we are unable to adequately respond to changes in market requirements due to regulatory or financial constraints, rapid technological changes or other factors, our ability to attract and retain students could be impaired and our revenue and profitability could be adversely affected.
Our future results of operations could be materially adversely affected if we are required to write down the carrying value of non-financial assets and non-financial liabilities, such as goodwill.
In accordance with U.S. GAAP, we review our non-financial assets and non-financial liabilities, including goodwill, for impairment on at least an annual basis through the application of fair value-based measurements. On an interim basis, we review our assets and liabilities to determine if a triggering event had occurred that would result in it being more likely than not that the fair value would be less than the carrying amount for any of our reporting units or indefinite-lived intangible assets. Some factors that management considers when determining if a triggering event has occurred include reviewing the significant inputs to the fair value calculation and any events or circumstances that could affect the significant inputs, including, but not limited to, financial performance, legal, regulatory, contractual, competitive, economic, political, business or other factors, industry and market conditions as well as the most recent quantitative fair value analysis for each reporting unit and the amount of the difference between the estimated fair value and the carrying value. We determine the fair value of our reporting units using a combination of an income approach, based on discounted cash flow, and a market-based approach. To the extent the fair value of a reporting unit is less than its carrying amount, we will be required to record an impairment charge in the consolidated statements of income. Our estimates of fair value are based primarily on projected future results and expected cash flows consistent with our plans to manage the underlying businesses, including projections of newly acquired businesses. However, should we encounter unexpected economic conditions or operational results, have unforeseen complications with integration of newly acquired businesses or need to take additional actions not currently foreseen to comply with current and future regulations, the assumptions used to calculate the fair value of our assets, estimate of future cash flows, revenue growth, and discount rates, could be negatively impacted and could result in an impairment of goodwill which could materially adversely affect our results of operations.
We rely on proprietary rights and intellectual property in conducting our business, which may not be adequately protected under current laws, and we may encounter disputes from time to time relating to our use of intellectual property of third parties.
Our success depends in part on our ability to protect our proprietary rights. We rely on a combination of copyrights, trademarks, service marks, trade secrets, domain names and agreements to protect our proprietary rights. We rely on service mark and trademark protection in the United States and select foreign jurisdictions to protect our rights to our marks as well as distinctive logos and other marks associated with our services. These measures may not be adequate, and we can’t be certain that we have secured, or will be able to secure, appropriate protections for all of our proprietary rights. Unauthorized third parties may attempt to duplicate the proprietary aspects of our curricula, online resource material and other content despite our efforts to protect these rights. Our management’s attention may be diverted by these attempts, and we may need to use funds for lawsuits to protect our proprietary rights against any infringement or violation.
We may encounter disputes from time to time over rights and obligations concerning intellectual property, and we may not prevail in these disputes. Third parties may raise a claim against us alleging an infringement or violation of the intellectual property of that third party. Some third party intellectual property rights may be extremely broad, and it may not be possible for us to conduct our operations in such a way as to avoid those intellectual property rights. Any such intellectual property claim could subject us to costly litigation and impose a significant strain on our financial resources and management personnel regardless of whether such claim has merit.
We may incur liability for the unauthorized duplication or distribution of class materials posted online for class discussions.
In some instances, our faculty members or our students may post various articles or other third-party content on class discussion boards or download third-party content to personal computers. We may incur claims or liability for the unauthorized duplication or distribution of this material. Any such claims could subject us to costly litigation and could impose a strain on our financial resources and management personnel regardless of whether the claims have merit.
The acquisition, integration and growth of acquired businesses may present challenges that could harm our business.
The successful integration and profitable operation of an acquired institution or business, including the realization of anticipated cost savings and additional revenue opportunities, can present challenges, and the failure to overcome these challenges can have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, cash flows and results of operations. Some of these challenges include:
•the inability to maintain uniform standards, controls, policies and procedures;
•distraction of management’s attention from normal business operations during the integration process;
•the inability to attract and/or retain key management personnel to operate the acquired entity;
•the inability to obtain, or delay in obtaining, regulatory or other approvals necessary to operate the business;
•the inability to correctly estimate the size of a target market or accurately assess market dynamics;
•expenses associated with the integration efforts; and
•unidentified issues not discovered in the due diligence process, including legal contingencies.
An acquisition related to an institution or other educational business often requires various regulatory approvals. If we are unable to obtain such approvals, or we obtain them on unfavorable terms, our ability to consummate a transaction may be impaired or we may be unable to operate the acquired entity in a manner that is favorable to us. If we fail to properly evaluate an acquisition, we may be required to incur costs in excess of what we anticipated, and we may not achieve the anticipated benefits of such acquisition.
Risks Related to Our Business Technology Infrastructure
The personal information that we collect may be vulnerable to breach, theft or loss which could adversely affect our reputation and operations.
In the ordinary course of our business, we maintain on our network systems, and on the networks of our third-party providers, certain information that is confidential, proprietary, personal (such as student information), or otherwise sensitive in nature, including financial information and confidential business information. Our computer networks and those of our vendors that manage confidential information for us or provide services to our students or us can be accessed globally through the internet and are vulnerable to unauthorized access, inadvertent access or display, theft or misuse, hackers, installation of ransomware and malware and computer viruses, during regular use and in connection with hardware and software upgrades and changes. These attacks have become more prevalent and sophisticated. Unauthorized access, misuse, theft or hacks can evade our intrusion detection and prevention precautions without alerting us to the breach or loss for some period of time or may never be detected. A user who circumvents security measures could misappropriate confidential or proprietary information or personal information about our students or employees or could cause interruptions or malfunctions in operations or commit fraud. We have experienced malware and virus attacks on our systems which went undetected by our virus detection and prevention software. Regular patching of our computer systems and frequent updates to our virus detection and prevention software with the latest virus and malware signatures may not catch newly introduced malware, ransomware, viruses or “zero-day” viruses, prior to their infecting our systems and potentially disrupting our data integrity, taking sensitive information or affecting financial transactions.
In addition to being subject to privacy and information security laws and regulations in the U.S., because our services can be accessed globally via the Internet, we may also be subject to privacy laws in countries outside the U.S. from which students access our services, which laws may constrain the way we market and provide our services. Any breach of student or employee privacy or errors in storing, using or transmitting personal information could violate privacy laws and regulations resulting in fines or other penalties. The adoption of new or modified state or federal data or cybersecurity legislation could increase our costs and require changes in our operating procedures or systems. An example of this is the California Consumer Privacy Act which became effective January 1, 2020.
A breach, theft or loss of personal information held by us or our vendors, or a violation of the laws and regulations governing privacy, could have a material adverse effect on our reputation or result in lawsuits, additional regulation, remediation and compliance costs or investments in additional security systems to protect our computer networks, the costs of which may be substantial.
System disruptions and vulnerability from security risks to our online technology infrastructure could have a material adverse effect on our ability to attract and retain students.
For our online and ground-based campuses, the performance and reliability of program infrastructure is critical to their operations, reputation and ability to attract and retain students. Any computer system or software error or failure, significant increase in traffic on our computer networks, or any significant failure or unavailability of our computer networks or third-party software, including but not limited to those as a result of natural disasters and network and telecommunications failures, could materially disrupt our delivery of these programs. Any interruption to our institutions’ computer systems or operations could have a material adverse effect on our student enrollments.
As discussed above, our computer networks and those of our vendors are also vulnerable to unauthorized access, installation of ransomware or malware, computer hackers, computer viruses, denial of service attacks and other security threats. A user who circumvents security measures could misappropriate proprietary information or cause interruptions or malfunctions in operations. Due to the sensitive nature of the information contained on our networks, hackers may target our networks. We expend significant resources to protect against the threat of these security breaches and may incur significant expenditures to alleviate problems caused by these breaches. We cannot ensure that our efforts will protect our computer networks against security breaches despite our regular monitoring of our technology infrastructure security.
Any general decline in Internet use for any reason, including security or privacy concerns, cost of Internet service or changes in government regulation, could result in less demand for online educational services and inhibit growth in our online programs.
Our remote work environment may exacerbate the risks related to our business technology infrastructure.
We transitioned almost all of our employees to remote work, as have a number of our third-party service vendors. This transition to a remote work environment may exacerbate certain risks to our business, including increasing the stress on, and our vulnerability to disruptions of, our technology infrastructure and systems, and increased risk of phishing and other cybersecurity attacks, unauthorized dissemination of confidential information and social engineering attempts. If a natural disaster, power outage, connectivity issue or other event occurs that impacts the ability of employees to work remotely, it may be difficult or, in certain cases, impossible, for us to continue our business for a period of time, which could be substantial. While most of our operations can be performed remotely, there is no guarantee that we will be as effective while working remotely because our team is dispersed, many employees may have additional personal needs to attend to (such as looking after children as a result of school closures or family who become sick), and employees may become sick themselves and be unable to work.
Government regulations relating to the Internet could increase our cost of doing business or otherwise have a material adverse effect on our business.
The increasing use of the Internet and other online services has led and may lead to the adoption of new laws and regulatory practices in the United States or in foreign countries and to new interpretations of existing laws and regulations. These new laws and interpretations may relate to issues such as online privacy, copyrights, trademarks and service marks, sales and use taxes, fair business practices and the requirement that online education institutions qualify to do business as foreign corporations or be licensed in one or more jurisdictions where they have no physical location or other presence. New laws, regulations or interpretations related to doing business over the Internet could increase our costs and adversely affect enrollments.
Risk Related to Our Common Stock
The trading price of our common stock may continue to fluctuate substantially in the future, and as a result returns on an investment in our common stock may be volatile.
The trading price of our common stock has and may fluctuate significantly as a result of a number of factors, some of which are not in our control. These factors include:
•the actual, anticipated or perceived impact of changes in the political environment or government policies;
•the outcomes and impacts on our business of the Department’s rulemakings, and other changes in the legal or regulatory environment in which we operate;
•negative media coverage of the for-profit education industry;
•general conditions in the postsecondary education field, including declining enrollments;
•the initiation, pendency or outcome of litigation, accreditation reviews, regulatory reviews, inquiries and investigations, and any related adverse publicity;
•failure of certain of our institutions or programs to maintain compliance under the 90-10 Rule or other regulatory standards;
•our ability to meet or exceed, or changes in, expectations of analysts or investors, or the extent of analyst coverage of our company;
•decisions by any significant investors to reduce their investment in us;
•quarterly variations in our operating results, which sometimes occur due to the academic calendar and significant expense items that do not regularly occur;
•loss of key personnel;
•price and volume fluctuations in the overall stock market, which may cause the market price for our common stock to fluctuate significantly more than the market as a whole; and
•general economic conditions.
Changes in the trading price of our common stock may occur without regard to our operating performance, and the price of our common stock could fluctuate based upon factors that have little or nothing to do with our company. Further, the trading volume of our common stock is relatively low, which may cause our stock price to react more to the above and other factors. The fluctuations in the trading price of our common stock may impact an investor’s ability to sell their shares at the desired time at a price considered satisfactory, including at or above the price at which the investor acquired them.

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ITEM 1B. UNRESOLVED STAFF COMMENTS
ITEM 1B. UNRESOLVED STAFF COMMENTS
None.

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ITEM 2. PROPERTIES
ITEM 2. PROPERTIES
Our ground-based campuses and their respective facilities include AIU Atlanta (Atlanta, GA), AIU Houston (Houston, TX), CTU Colorado Springs (Colorado Springs, CO) and CTU Denver South (Aurora, CO). These campuses generally consist of teaching facilities, including classrooms and laboratories, and administrative offices. Additionally, we have administrative facilities located in the areas of Chicago, Illinois and Phoenix, Arizona, which are used for our universities and corporate functions.
We have transitioned our workforce to a primarily remote work environment, supported by our scalable and innovative technology infrastructure. The Company continues to look for ways to optimize our leased space and during 2022, the Company vacated its primary corporate location and relocated its headquarters to existing leased space in Schaumburg, Illinois.
All of our campus and administrative facilities are leased except one in Houston, Texas. As of December 31, 2022 we leased approximately 0.4 million square feet under lease agreements that have remaining terms ranging from less than one year through 2032. The facility in Houston, Texas, is used by AIUS and is less than 0.1 million square feet of real property.
See Item 1, “Business,” for a listing of our campus locations.

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ITEM 3. LEGAL PROCEEDINGS
ITEM 3. LEGAL PROCEEDINGS
See note 12 “Contingencies” to our consolidated financial statements in Item 15 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

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ITEM 4. MINE SAFETY DISCLOSURE
ITEM 4. MINE SAFETY DISCLOSURES
Not applicable.
PART II

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ITEM 5. MARKET FOR REGISTRANT'S COMMON EQUITY
ITEM 5. MARKET FOR REGISTRANT’S COMMON EQUITY, RELATED STOCKHOLDER MATTERS AND ISSUER PURCHASES OF EQUITY SECURITIES
Our common stock is listed for trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market (“Nasdaq”) under the symbol “PRDO”.
The closing price of our common stock as reported on the Nasdaq on February 17, 2023 was $14.42 per share. As of February 17, 2023, there were approximately 106 holders of record of our common stock, including The Depository Trust Company, which holds shares of our common stock on behalf of an indeterminate number of beneficial owners.
Our common stock transfer agent and registrar is Computershare Trust Company, N.A. They can be contacted at P.O. Box# 43078, Providence, RI 02940-3078 or at their website www.computershare.com/investor.
Our Company has never paid cash dividends on our common stock and we have no current plan to do so. The declaration and payment of dividends on our common stock are subject to the discretion of our Board of Directors. The decision of our Board of Directors to pay future dividends will depend on general business conditions, the effect of a dividend payment on our financial condition, and other factors the Board of Directors may consider relevant. The current policy of our Board of Directors is to reinvest earnings in our operations to promote future growth and, from time to time, to execute repurchases of shares of our common stock under the stock repurchase program discussed below. The repurchase of shares of our common stock reduces the amount of cash available to pay cash dividends to our common stockholders. In addition, our ability to pay cash dividends on our common stock is also limited under the terms of our existing credit agreement. As of December 31, 2022, we are in compliance with the covenants of our credit agreement.
On January 27, 2022 the Board of Directors of the Company approved a new stock repurchase program for up to $50.0 million which commenced March 1, 2022 and expires September 30, 2023. The other terms of the new stock repurchase program are consistent with the Company’s prior stock repurchase program which expired on February 28, 2022.
During 2022, we repurchased 2.1 million shares of our common stock for approximately $23.1 million at an average price of $11.02 per share under the Company’s current stock repurchase program. The timing of purchases and the number of shares repurchased under the program are determined by the Company’s management and depend on a variety of factors including stock price, trading volume and other general market and economic conditions, its assessment of alternative uses of capital, regulatory requirements and other factors. Repurchases will be made in open market transactions, including block purchases, conducted in accordance with Rule 10b-18 under the Exchange Act as well as may be made pursuant to trading plans established under Rule 10b5-1 under the Exchange Act, which would permit shares to be repurchased when the Company might otherwise be precluded from doing so under insider trading laws. The stock repurchase program does not obligate the Company to purchase shares and the Company may, in its discretion, begin, suspend or terminate repurchases at any time, without any prior notice. As of December 31, 2022, approximately $26.8 million was available under the stock repurchase program.
Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities
Period
Total Number of
Shares
Purchased (1)
Average Price
Paid per Share
Total Number of
Shares Purchased
as Part of Publicly
Announced Plans
or Programs
Maximum
Approximate
Dollar Value of
Shares that May
Yet Be Purchased
Under the Plans
or Programs (2)
December 31, 2021
$
2,889,583
January 1, 2022 - January 31, 2022
-
$
-
-
2,889,583
February 1, 2022 - February 28, 2022
-
-
-
2,889,583
March 1, 2022 - March 31, 2022
508,967
10.69
362,571
46,164,617
April 1, 2022 - April 30, 2022
-
-
-
46,164,617
May 1, 2022 - May 31, 2022
801,425
10.51
801,425
37,727,438
June 1, 2022 - June 30, 2022
315,790
10.84
315,639
34,300,193
July 1, 2022 - July 31, 2022
-
-
-
34,300,193
August 1, 2022 - August 31, 2022
498,781
12.27
498,781
28,171,644
September 1, 2022 - September 30, 2022
119,968
11.08
119,968
26,840,200
October 1, 2022 - October 31, 2022
-
-
-
26,840,200
November 1, 2022 - November 30, 2022
-
-
-
26,840,200
December 1, 2022 - December 31, 2022
-
-
-
26,840,200
Total
2,244,931
2,098,384
(1)Includes 146,547 shares delivered back to the Company for payment of withholding taxes from employees for vesting restricted stock units pursuant to the terms of the Perdoceo Education Corporation Amended and Restated 2016 Incentive Compensation Plan.
(2)On January 27, 2022 the Board of Directors of the Company approved a stock repurchase program for up to $50.0 million which commenced March 1, 2022 and expires September 30, 2023. The previous stock repurchase program expired on February 28, 2022.
See Item 12, “Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters,” for information as of December 31, 2022, with respect to shares of our common stock that may be issued under our existing share-based compensation plans.
The graph below shows a comparison of cumulative total returns for Perdoceo, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index and an index of peer companies selected by Perdoceo. The companies in the peer index are weighted according to their market capitalization as of the end of each period for which a return is indicated. Included in the peer index are the following companies whose primary business is postsecondary education: Adtalem Global Education Inc., American Public Education, Inc., Grand Canyon Education, Inc., Laureate Education, Inc., and Strategic Education, Inc. The performance graph begins with Perdoceo’s $12.08 per share closing price on December 29, 2017.
COMPARISON OF CUMULATIVE FIVE-YEAR TOTAL RETURN
(Based on $100 invested on December 29, 2017 and assumes the reinvestment of all dividends.)
The information contained in the performance graph shall not be deemed “soliciting material” or to be “filed” with the Securities and Exchange Commission nor shall such information be deemed incorporated by reference into any future filing under the Securities Act of 1933 or the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as both are amended from time to time, except to the extent specifically incorporated by reference into such filing.

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ITEM 6. SELECTED FINANCIAL DATA
ITEM 6. Reserved

---

ITEM 7. MANAGEMENT'S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS
ITEM 7. MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS
The discussion below contains “forward-looking statements,” as defined in Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, that reflect our current expectations regarding our future growth, results of operations, cash flows, performance and business prospects and opportunities, as well as assumptions made by, and information currently available to, our management. We have tried to identify forward-looking statements by using words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “expect,” “plan,” “may,” “should,” ”will,” “continue to,” “focused on” and similar expressions, but these words are not the exclusive means of identifying forward-looking statements. These statements are based on information currently available to us and are subject to various risks, uncertainties, and other factors, including, but not limited to, those matters discussed in Item 1A, “Risk Factors,” in Part I of this Annual Report on Form 10-K that could cause our actual growth, results of operations, financial condition, cash flows, performance, business prospects and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, these statements. Except as expressly required by the federal securities laws, we undertake no obligation to update such factors or to publicly announce the results of any of the forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect future events, developments, or changed circumstances or for any other reason.
As used in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, the terms “we,” “us,” “our,” “the Company,” “Perdoceo” and “PEC” refer to Perdoceo Education Corporation and our wholly-owned subsidiaries. The terms “institution” and “university” refer to an individual, branded, for-profit educational institution, owned by us and including its campus locations. The term “campus” refers to an individual main or branch campus operated by one of our institutions.
The following Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations (“MD&A”) should be read in conjunction with the Company’s consolidated financial statements and the notes thereto appearing elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. The MD&A is intended to help investors understand the results of operations, financial condition and present business environment. The MD&A is organized as follows:
•Overview
•Consolidated Results of Operations
•Segment Results of Operations
•Summary of Critical Accounting Policies and Estimates
•Liquidity, Financial Position and Capital Resources
OVERVIEW
Perdoceo’s accredited academic institutions offer a quality postsecondary education primarily online to a diverse student population, along with campus-based and blended learning programs. The Company’s academic institutions - Colorado Technical University (“CTU”) and the American InterContinental University System (“AIUS” or “AIU System”) - provide degree programs from the associate through doctoral level as well as non-degree seeking and professional development programs. Our academic institutions offer students industry-relevant and career-focused academic programs that are designed to meet the educational needs of today’s busy adults. CTU and AIUS continue to show innovation in higher education, advancing personalized learning technologies like their intellipath® learning platform and using data analytics and technology to serve and educate students while enhancing overall learning and academic experiences. Perdoceo is committed to providing quality education that closes the gap between learners who seek to advance their careers and employers needing a qualified workforce.
Our reporting segments are determined in accordance with Financial Accounting Standards Board (“FASB”) Accounting Standards Codification (“ASC”) Topic 280 - Segment Reporting and are based upon how the Company analyzes performance and makes decisions. Each segment represents a postsecondary education provider that offers a variety of academic programs. We organize our business across two reporting segments: CTU and AIUS.
On December 1, 2022, the Company acquired Coding Dojo (the "Coding Dojo Acquisition"). Coding Dojo provides computer programming and general technology upskilling and reskilling development opportunities to technology-driven students with a quality technology platform and market demand course offering content in the areas of software development, data science and cybersecurity. Results of operations related to the Coding Dojo acquisition are included in the consolidated financial statements within the CTU segment from the date of acquisition.
On July 1, 2022, the Company acquired substantially all of the assets of California Southern University ("CalSouthern" and the "CalSouthern acquisition"). CalSouthern provides online education with a quality technology platform and strong course content in the areas of behavioral sciences and business management programs. Results of operations related to the CalSouthern acquisition are included in the consolidated financial statements within the AIUS segment from the date of acquisition.
On September 10, 2021, the Company acquired Hippo Education, LLC (“Hippo” and the “Hippo Acquisition”). Hippo provides continuing medical education and exam preparation for medical professionals with a quality technology platform and strong course
content. Results of operations related to the Hippo acquisition are included in the consolidated financial statements within the CTU segment from the date of acquisition.
On August 2, 2021, the Company acquired substantially all of the assets of DigitalCrafts (the “DigitalCrafts acquisition”). DigitalCrafts helps provide individuals an opportunity in the technology area through reskilling and upskilling courses within the areas of web development, web design and cybersecurity. Results of operations related to the DigitalCrafts acquisition are included in the consolidated financial statements within the AIUS segment from the date of acquisition.
See Note 18 “Segment Reporting” for a description of each of our current reporting segments along with revenues, operating income and total assets by reporting segment for each of the past three fiscal years.
Regulatory Environment and Political Uncertainty
We operate in a highly regulated industry, which has significant impacts on our business and creates risks and uncertainties. In recent years, Congress, the Department, states, accrediting agencies, the CFPB, the FTC, state attorneys general and the media have all scrutinized the for-profit postsecondary education sector. Congressional hearings and roundtable discussions were held regarding various aspects of the education industry, including issues surrounding student debt as well as publicly reported student outcomes that may be used as part of an institution’s recruiting and admissions practices, and reports were issued that are highly critical of for-profit colleges and universities. A group of influential U.S. senators, consumer advocacy groups and some media outlets have strongly and repeatedly encouraged the Department, DoD and the VA and its state approving agencies to take action to limit or terminate the participation of institutions such as ours in existing tuition assistance programs. In addition, targeted loan relief to student borrowers is a stated priority for the Department, and consumer advocacy groups and others are focusing their lobbying and other efforts relating to student debt forgiveness on for-profit colleges and universities, encouraging loan discharge applications and complaints by former students.
The current administration, as well as Congress, are pursuing significant legislative, regulatory and administrative actions affecting our business. A loss or material reduction in Title IV Programs or the amount of student financial aid for which our students are eligible would materially impact our student enrollments and profitability and could impact the continued viability of our business as currently conducted.
We encourage you to review Item 1, “Business,” and Item 1A, “Risk Factors,” to learn more about our highly regulated industry and related risks and uncertainties.
Note Regarding Non-GAAP measures
We believe it is useful to present non-GAAP financial measures which exclude certain significant and non-cash items as a means to understand the performance of our core business. As a general matter, we use non-GAAP financial measures in conjunction with results presented in accordance with GAAP to help analyze the performance of our core business, assist with preparing the annual operating plan, and measure performance for some forms of compensation. In addition, we believe that non-GAAP financial information is used by analysts and others in the investment community to analyze our historical results and to provide estimates of future performance.
We believe certain non-GAAP measures allow us to compare our current operating results with respective historical periods and with the operational performance of other companies in our industry because it does not give effect to potential differences caused by items we do not consider reflective of underlying operating performance. We believe the items we are adjusting for are not normal operating expenses necessary to run our business. In evaluating the use of non-GAAP measures, investors should be aware that in the future we may incur expenses similar to the adjustments presented below. Our presentation of non-GAAP measures should not be construed as an inference that our future results will be unaffected by expenses that are unusual, non-routine or non-recurring. A non-GAAP measure has limitations as an analytical tool, and you should not consider it in isolation, or as a substitute for net income, operating income, earnings per diluted share, or any other performance measure derived in accordance with and reported under GAAP or as an alternative to cash flow from operating activities or as a measure of our liquidity.
Non-GAAP financial measures, when viewed in a reconciliation to respective GAAP financial measures, provide an additional way of viewing the Company's results of operations and the factors and trends affecting the Company's business. Non-GAAP financial measures should be considered as a supplement to, and not as a substitute for, or superior to, the respective financial results presented in accordance with GAAP.
2022 Review
During the year ended December 31, 2022 ("current year"), we continued to focus on our primary objectives of enhancing student experiences, retention and academic outcomes. We experienced meaningful improvements in student retention and engagement as we progressed through the current year, as the lingering impacts from the pandemic and macro-economic policies began to recede. Additionally, changes we made to our marketing processes positively impacted student retention and engagement, particularly in the second half of the year. These marketing changes were made to refine the process to identify prospective students who are more likely to succeed at one of our academic institutions.
During the year we completed the acquisitions of California Southern University on July 1, 2022 and Coding Dojo on December 1, 2022. These acquisitions expand the depth and breadth of our educational offerings at our academic institutions.
Total student enrollments decreased 3.0% at December 31, 2022 as compared to December 31, 2021, with AIUS’ decrease of 10.8% partially offset with an increase of 2.0% at CTU. CTU's increase in total student enrollments was driven by student enrollments resulting from our corporate partnership program. The rate of decrease in AIUS’ total student enrollments moderated during the second half of 2022 as compared to the first half. Improvements experienced in student retention and engagement, partially due to a positive impact from student loan initiatives implemented by the current administration benefited total student enrollments at both of our academic institutions as of December 31, 2022.
During 2022 we further increased the size of our corporate partnership team and they are successfully engaging with employers to leverage their tuition assistance programs and provide a debt-free education to their employees. In general, these partnerships take time to develop, and students are awarded higher tuition grants from the university to offset their tuition costs, resulting in lower revenue per student in any given period. However, we believe students participating in these programs typically experience higher retention over the course of their program, have better academic outcomes, graduate with no debt and ultimately may lead to a higher life time value per student.
We believe investments in technology positively impact student experiences and academic outcomes. During the current year, we made necessary investments to upgrade our student-serving systems and continued to leverage data analytics and machine learning to strive to provide current and prospective students with a more targeted, relevant and meaningful experience throughout their academic journey from admissions and enrollment, to classroom learning and interaction and ultimately through graduation. We launched a new student relationship system that provides assistance and insights in the advising process, enabling us to effectively engage with students with the appropriate support at the right time. We continued to update our mobile applications during the current year and have further optimized our chatbots at both our academic institutions, supporting a more efficient, effective and round the clock engagement with students.
During the fourth quarter we experienced further improvements in student retention and engagement, in part, due to student loan relief initiatives implemented by the current administration and we expect these improvements to persist in 2023. Additionally, we expect full year revenue to be higher as compared to 2022, resulting from recent acquisitions, the academic calendar redesign at CTU and underlying organic improvements in student retention and engagement.
Financial Highlights
Revenue for the year ended December 31, 2022 increased by 0.3% or $2.2 million as compared to the prior year, resulting from an increase in revenue for CTU of 2.7% or $11.1 million mostly offset with a decrease for AIUS of 3.1% or $8.9 million. The increase in revenue for the current year was driven by a positive impact of the academic calendar redesign at both CTU and AIUS as well as the acquisitions completed in the current year and prior year that were not part of the full comparative prior year period. Excluding these items, revenue for both AIUS and CTU would have decreased as compared to the prior year.
Operating income for the current year decreased to $129.6 million as compared to operating income of $149.0 million in the prior year. The decrease in operating income for the current year was primarily due to certain one-time investments at our academic institutions within human capital and marketing expenses as well as increased amortization expense related to acquisitions and asset impairments as compared to the prior year.
The Company believes it is useful to present non-GAAP financial measures, which exclude certain significant and non-cash items, as a means to understand the performance of its operations. (See tables below for a GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliation.) Adjusted operating income was $164.0 million for the current year as compared to $175.5 million in the prior year.
Adjusted operating income for the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021 is presented below (dollars in thousands, unless otherwise noted):
For the Year Ended December 31,
Adjusted Operating Income
Operating income
$
129,637
$
149,016
Depreciation and amortization (1)
19,734
16,766
Legal fee expense related to certain matters (2)
14,597
9,735
Adjusted Operating Income
$
163,968
$
175,517
For the Year Ended December 31,
Reported Earnings Per Diluted Share
$
1.39
$
1.55
Pre-tax adjustments included in operating expenses:
Amortization for acquired intangible assets (1)
0.11
0.06
Legal fee expense related to certain matters (2)
0.21
0.14
Total pre-tax adjustments
0.32
0.20
Tax effect of adjustments (3)
(0.08
)
(0.05
)
Total adjustments after tax
0.24
0.15
Adjusted Earnings Per Diluted Share
$
1.63
$
1.70
___________________________
(1) Amortization for acquired intangible assets relate to definite-lived intangible assets associated with acquisitions.
(2) Legal fee expense associated with (i) responses to the Department relating to borrower defense to repayment applications from former students, and (ii) acquisition efforts.
(3) The tax effect of adjustments was calculated by multiplying the pre-tax adjustments with a tax rate of 25%. This tax rate is intended to reflect federal and state taxable jurisdictions as well as the nature of the adjustments.
CONSOLIDATED RESULTS OF OPERATIONS
The summary of selected financial data table below should be referenced in connection with a review of the following discussion of our results of operations for the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021 (dollars in thousands), including comparisons of our year-over-year performance between these years. Please refer to Item 7, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operation” in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021 for a discussion of our results for the year ended December 31, 2020, as well as the year-over-year comparison of our 2021 financial performance to 2020.
For the Year Ended December 31,
% of
Total
Revenue
% of
Total
Revenue
% of
Total
Revenue
TOTAL REVENUE
$
695,208
$
693,034
$
687,314
OPERATING EXPENSES
Educational services and facilities (1)
116,723
16.8
%
108,743
15.7
%
111,768
16.3
%
General and administrative (2):
Advertising and marketing
126,843
18.2
%
137,228
19.8
%
143,282
20.8
%
Admissions
93,810
13.5
%
96,403
13.9
%
99,035
14.4
%
Administrative
163,893
23.6
%
140,529
20.3
%
127,336
18.5
%
Bad debt
41,574
6.0
%
44,349
6.4
%
47,561
6.9
%
Total general and administrative expense
426,120
61.3
%
418,509
60.4
%
417,214
60.7
%
Depreciation and amortization
19,734
2.8
%
16,766
2.4
%
14,786
2.2
%
Asset impairment
2,994
0.4
%
-
0.0
%
0.1
%
OPERATING INCOME
129,637
18.6
%
149,016
21.5
%
142,934
20.8
%
PRETAX INCOME
134,269
19.3
%
149,067
21.5
%
146,740
21.3
%
PROVISION FOR INCOME TAXES
38,402
5.5
%
39,430
5.7
%
22,476
3.3
%
Effective tax rate
28.6
%
26.5
%
15.3
%
NET INCOME
$
95,867
13.8
%
$
109,637
15.8
%
$
124,264
18.1
%
_______________
(1)Educational services and facilities expense includes costs attributable to the educational activities of our campuses, including: salaries and benefits of faculty, academic administrators and student support personnel, and costs of educational supplies and facilities, such as rents on leased facilities. Also included in educational services and facilities expense are rents on leased administrative facilities, such as our corporate headquarters, and costs of other goods and services provided by our campuses, including costs of textbooks and laptop computers.
(2)General and administrative expense includes operating expenses associated with, including salaries and benefits of personnel in, corporate and campus administration, marketing, admissions, information technology, financial aid, accounting, human resources, legal and compliance. Other expenses within this expense category include costs of advertising and production of marketing materials and bad debt expense.
Year Ended December 31, 2022 as Compared to the Year Ended December 31, 2021
Revenue
Revenue for the year ended December 31, 2022 ("current year") increased 0.3% or $2.2 million, driven by growth in revenue within CTU which was mostly offset with the reduction in revenue for AIUS as compared to the prior year. The decline in revenue for AIUS was driven by the decrease in total student enrollments as compared to the prior year end. Revenue for the current year was benefitted by the academic calendar redesign as well as the acquisitions completed in 2022 and 2021 that were not part of the full comparative prior year period. Excluding the positive impacts of the academic calendar redesign and the current and prior year acquisitions, revenue would have decreased for both CTU and AIUS as compared to the prior year.
Educational Services and Facilities Expense (dollars in thousands)
For the Year Ended December 31,
2022 vs 2021 % Change
2021 vs 2020 % Change
Educational services and facilities:
Academics & student related
$
99,410
$
91,426
$
90,659
8.7
%
0.8
%
Occupancy
17,313
17,317
21,109
0.0
%
-18.0
%
Total educational services and facilities
$
116,723
$
108,743
$
111,768
7.3
%
-2.7
%
Educational services and facilities expense for the current year increased by 7.3% or $8.0 million as compared to the prior year, driven by academics and student related expense primarily related to the 2022 and 2021 acquisitions. Occupancy expense remained relatively flat as compared to the prior year.
General and Administrative Expense (dollars in thousands)
For the Year Ended December 31,
2022 vs 2021 % Change
2021 vs 2020 % Change
General and administrative:
Advertising and marketing
$
126,843
$
137,228
$
143,282
-7.6
%
-4.2
%
Admissions
93,810
96,403
99,035
-2.7
%
-2.7
%
Administrative
163,893
140,529
127,336
16.6
%
10.4
%
Bad Debt
41,574
44,349
47,561
-6.3
%
-6.8
%
Total general and administrative expense
$
426,120
$
418,509
$
417,214
1.8
%
0.3
%
The general and administrative expense for the current year increased by 1.8% or $7.6 million as compared to the prior year. The increase was primarily driven by increased administrative expense, which was partially offset by decreases in advertising and marketing, admissions and bad debt expenses.
Administrative expense increased by 16.6% or $23.4 million due to increased legal fees, including those related to the borrowers defense to repayment applications from former students, increased payroll expenses due to one-time items and acquisition-related costs.
The advertising and marketing expense for the current year decreased by 7.6% or $10.4 million as compared to the prior year, as a result of adjustments to our marketing processes related to identifying prospective student interest within both CTU and AIUS.
Admissions expense decreased by 2.7% or $2.6 million as compared to the prior year primarily due to the changes to the marketing processes mentioned above which also benefit admissions expense, this improvement was partially offset with increased admissions expense within CTU due to acquisitions.
Bad debt expense incurred by each of our segments during the years ended December 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020 was as follows (dollars in thousands):
For the Year Ended December 31,
% of Segment Revenue
% of Segment Revenue
% of Segment Revenue
2022 vs 2021 % Change
2021 vs 2020 % Change
Bad debt expense by segment:
CTU
$
21,640
5.2
%
$
20,150
4.9
%
$
23,292
5.7
%
7.4
%
-13.5
%
AIUS
19,971
7.3
%
24,249
8.6
%
24,345
8.7
%
-17.6
%
-0.4
%
Corporate and Other
(37
)
NM
(50
)
NM
(76
)
NM
NM
NM
Total bad debt expense
$
41,574
6.0
%
$
44,349
6.4
%
$
47,561
6.9
%
-6.3
%
-6.8
%
Bad debt expense decreased by 6.3% or $2.8 million for the current year as compared to the prior year. Total bad debt expense as a percentage of revenue also improved for the current year by 40 basis points as compared to the prior year. AIUS' bad debt expense decreased by 17.6% or $4.3 million which more than offset CTU's increased bad debt expense of 7.4% or $1.5 million for the current year as compared to the prior year.
We continue to expect quarterly fluctuations in bad debt expense. We regularly evaluate our reserve rates, which includes a quarterly update of our analysis of historical student receivable collectability based on the most recent data available and a review of current known factors which we believe could affect future collectability of our student receivables, such as the number of students that do not complete the financial aid process. Our student support teams have maintained their focus on financial aid documentation collection and are counseling students through the Title IV financial aid process so that they are better prepared to start school. We have also focused on emphasizing employer-paid and other direct-pay education programs such as corporate partnerships as students within these programs typically have lower bad debt expense associated with them.
Operating Income
Operating income for the current year decreased by 13.0% or $19.4 million as compared to the prior year. The current year decrease in operating income was primarily due to increased administrative and academics and student related expense, along with increased amortization expense and asset impairment charges, which were only partially offset by decreases within advertising and marketing, admissions and bad debt expenses as compared to the prior year.
Provision for Income Taxes
For the year ended December 31, 2022, we recorded a tax provision of $38.4 million, which includes a $0.8 million unfavorable adjustment associated with the tax effect of stock-based compensation, which increased the effective rate by 0.6%. The 2022 effective rate also reflects the establishment of a full valuation allowance of $1.4 million with respect to select combined state net operating losses that are anticipated to go unused based on current expectations and $0.9 million related to the expected non-deductibility of reductions in the carrying value of our equity investment, which collectively increased the effective rate by 1.7%. Additionally, we re-evaluated the character of the loss incurred on the elimination of a wholly-owned subsidiary during the prior year and re-categorized this transaction in the 2021 tax returns as an ordinary loss attributable to the stock of a worthless subsidiary. As a result of our assessment, the $3.1 million deferred tax asset and offsetting valuation allowance with respect to the capital loss carryforward was eliminated, which had an offsetting impact on the effective tax rate of 2.3%.
For the year ended December 31, 2021, we recorded a tax provision of $39.4 million, which includes a $1.6 million unfavorable adjustment associated with the tax effect of stock-based compensation and a $0.5 million favorable adjustment related to federal and state credits claimed for the 2020 tax return and anticipated for the 2021 tax year.
For the full year 2023, we expect our effective tax rate to be between 25.5% and 26.5%.
SEGMENT RESULTS OF OPERATIONS
The summary of segment financial information below should be referenced in connection with a review of the following discussion of our segment results from operations for the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021 (dollars in thousands), including comparisons of our year-over-year performance between these years. Please refer to Part II Item 7, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operation” in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021 for a discussion of our results for the year ended December 31, 2020, as well as the year-over-year comparison of our 2021 financial performance to 2020.
For the Year Ended December 31,
2022 vs 2021 % Change
2021 vs 2020 % Change
REVENUE:
CTU (1)
$
419,617
$
408,549
$
405,507
2.7
%
0.8
%
AIUS (2)
274,479
283,360
281,361
-3.1
%
0.7
%
Corporate and Other (3)
1,112
1,125
NM
NM
Total
$
695,208
$
693,034
$
687,314
0.3
%
0.8
%
OPERATING INCOME (LOSS):
CTU (1)
$
141,622
$
148,481
$
138,490
-4.6
%
7.2
%
AIUS (2)
33,315
39,130
30,822
-14.9
%
27.0
%
Corporate and Other (3)
(45,300
)
(38,595
)
(26,378
)
17.4
%
-46.3
%
Total
$
129,637
$
149,016
$
142,934
-13.0
%
4.3
%
OPERATING INCOME (LOSS) MARGIN:
CTU (1)
33.8
%
36.3
%
34.2
%
AIUS (2)
12.1
%
13.8
%
11.0
%
Corporate and Other (3)
NM
NM
NM
Total
18.6
%
21.5
%
20.8
%
______________________
(1)CTU’s results of operations include the Coding Dojo acquisition commencing on the December 1, 2022 date of acquisition and the Hippo acquisition commencing on the September 10, 2021 date of acquisition.
(2)AIUS’ results of operations include the CalSouthern acquisition commencing on the July 1, 2022 date of acquisition and the DigitalCrafts acquisition commencing on the August 2, 2021 date of acquisition.
(3)Revenue recorded within Corporate and Other relates to miscellaneous non-student related revenue.
As of December 31,
2022 vs 2021 % Change
2021 vs 2020 % Change
TOTAL STUDENT ENROLLMENTS:
CTU
25,200
24,700
24,600
2.0
%
0.4
%
AIUS
14,000
15,700
18,100
-10.8
%
-13.3
%
Total University Group
39,200
40,400
42,700
-3.0
%
-5.4
%
Total student enrollments represent all students who are active as of the last day of the reporting period. Active students are defined as those students who are considered in attendance by participating in class related activities during the previous two weeks. Total student enrollments do not include learners participating in: a) non-degree seeking and professional development programs, and b) degree seeking, non-Title IV, self-paced programs at our universities.
Year Ended December 31, 2022 as Compared to the Year Ended December 31, 2021
CTU. Current year revenue increased by 2.7% or $11.1 million as compared to the prior year. The current year increase was driven by a positive impact of the academic calendar redesign and the acquisitions completed in the prior year and current year.
Current year operating income for CTU decreased by 4.6% or $6.9 million as compared to the prior year, driven by increased operating expenses across most categories, with the exception of advertising and marketing. The increase in operating expenses were primarily due to acquisitions as well as one-time investments in human capital, which more than offset the increased revenue for the current year as compared to the prior year.
AIUS. Current year revenue decreased by 3.1% or $8.9 million as compared to the prior year. The current year decrease was primarily driven by a decrease in total student enrollments of 10.8% as compared to the prior year. A discussion of the factors we believe contributed to the decrease in total student enrollments is discussed above within "2022 Review".
Current year operating income for AIUS decreased by 14.9% or $5.8 million as compared to the prior year, primarily due to lower revenue discussed above as well as one time investments in human capital, which were only partially offset with decreased advertising and marketing, bad debt and admissions expenses for the current year as compared to the prior year.
Corporate and Other. This category includes unallocated costs that are incurred on behalf of the entire company. Total Corporate and Other operating loss for the current year increased by 17.4% or $6.7 million as compared to the prior year, primarily as
a result of increased legal fee expense, including legal fees associated with the borrower defense to repayment applications from former students and expenses associated with acquisitions.
SUMMARY OF CRITICAL ACCOUNTING POLICIES AND ESTIMATES
We have identified the accounting policies and estimates listed below as those that we believe require management’s most subjective and complex judgments in estimating the effect of inherent uncertainties. This section should be read in conjunction with Note 2 “Summary of Significant Accounting Policies” to our consolidated financial statements which includes a discussion of these and other significant accounting policies.
Revenue Recognition
Description: Our revenue, which is derived primarily from academic programs taught to students who attend our universities, is generally segregated into two categories: (1) tuition and fees, and (2) other. Tuition and fees represent costs to our students for educational services provided by our universities and are reflected net of scholarships and tuition discounts. Our universities charge tuition and fees at varying amounts, depending on the university, the type of program and specific curriculum. Our universities bill students a single charge that covers tuition, certain fees and required program materials, such as textbooks and supplies, which we treat as a single performance obligation. Generally, we bill student tuition at the beginning of each academic term for our degree programs and recognize the tuition as revenue on a straight-line basis over the academic term. As part of a student’s course of instruction, certain fees, such as technology fees and graduation fees, are billed separately to students. These fees are generally earned over the applicable term and are not considered separate performance obligations. We generally bill student tuition upon enrollment for our non-degree professional development programs and recognize the tuition as revenue on a straight-line basis over the length of the offering.
Assumptions and judgment: Revenue recognition includes assumptions and significant judgments including determination of the appropriate portfolios to assess for meeting the criteria to recognize revenue under ASC Topic 606 as well as the assessment of collectability. We analyze revenue recognition on a portfolio approach under ASC Topic 606. Significant judgment is used in determining the appropriate portfolios to assess for meeting the criteria to recognize revenue under ASC Topic 606. We have determined that all of our students can be grouped into one portfolio. Based on our past experience, students at different universities, in different programs or with different funding all behave similarly. Enrollment agreements all contain similar terms, refund policies are similar across all institutions and students work with the university to obtain some type of funding, for example, Title IV Program funds, Veterans Administration funds, military funding, employer reimbursement or self-pay. We have significant historical data for our students which allows us to analyze collectability. We do not expect that revenue earned for the portfolio is significantly different as compared to revenue that would be earned if we were to assess each student contract separately.
Significant judgment is also required to assess collectability, particularly as it relates to students seeking funding under Title IV Programs. Because students are required to provide documentation, and in some cases extensive documentation, to the Department to be eligible and approved for funding, the timeframe for this process can sometimes span between 90 to 120 days. We monitor the progress of students through the eligibility and approval process and assess collectability for the portfolio each reporting period to monitor that the collectability threshold is met.
These assumptions and significant judgments are based upon our interpretation of accounting guidance and historical experience. Although management believes these assumptions and significant judgments to be reasonable, actual amounts may differ if historical experience is not reflective of future results.
Impact if actual results differ from assumptions and judgment: If actual performance is not consistent with historical experience in regards to our assessment of collectability, our revenue recognition may be materially different than what was originally recorded.
Allowance for Credit Losses
Description: We extend unsecured credit to a portion of the students who are enrolled at our academic institutions for tuition and certain other educational costs. Based upon past experience and judgment, we establish an allowance for credit losses with respect to student receivables which we estimate will ultimately not be collectible. As such, our results from operations only reflect the amount of revenue that is estimated to be reasonably collectible. Our standard student receivable allowance is based on an estimate of lifetime expected credit losses for student receivables. Our estimation methodology considers a number of quantitative and qualitative factors that, based on our collection experience, we believe have an impact on our repayment risk and ability to collect student receivables. Changes in the trends in any of these factors may impact our estimate of the allowance for credit losses. These factors include, but are not limited to: internal repayment history, changes in the current economic, legislative or regulatory environments, internal cash collection forecasts and the ability to complete the federal financial aid process with the student. These factors are monitored and assessed on a regular basis. Overall, our allowance estimation process for student receivables is validated by trending analysis and comparing estimated and actual performance.
Assumptions and judgment: Management makes a range of assumptions to determine what is believed to be the appropriate level of allowance for credit losses. Management determines a reasonable and supportable forecast based on the expectation of future conditions over a supportable forecast period as described above, as well as qualitative adjustments based on current and future
conditions that may not be fully captured in the historical modeling factors described above. All of these estimates are susceptible to significant change.
Impact if actual results differ from assumptions and judgment: We monitor our collections and write-off experience to assess whether or not adjustments to our allowance percentage estimates are necessary. Changes in trends in any of the factors that we believe impact the collection of our student receivables, as noted above, or modifications to our collection practices, and other related policies may impact our estimate of our allowance for credit losses and our results from operations.
A one percentage point change in our allowance for credit losses as a percentage of gross earned student receivables as of December 31, 2022 would have resulted in a change in pretax income of $0.9 million during the year then ended.
Because a substantial portion of our revenue is derived from Title IV Programs, any legislative or regulatory action that significantly reduces the funding available under Title IV Programs, or the ability of our students or institutions to participate in Title IV Programs, would likely have a material impact on the realizability of our receivables.
Goodwill Impairment
Description: Goodwill represents the excess of cost over the fair value of identifiable net assets acquired through purchases. Goodwill often involves estimates based on third party valuations, or internal valuations based on discounted cash flow analyses or other valuation techniques. Under ASC Topic 350, we conduct a goodwill impairment assessment at least annually, and more frequently if events occur or circumstances change that would more-likely-than-not reduce the fair value of the goodwill on our consolidated balance sheet below its carrying amount. In making this assessment we assess qualitative factors to determine whether it is more-likely-than-not the fair value of the goodwill is less than its carrying amount. If we conclude based on the qualitative assessment that goodwill may be impaired, we then perform a quantitative one-step impairment test, and an impairment loss would be recognized for the excess of the carrying value over the fair value of the goodwill. Any subsequent increases in goodwill would not be recognized on the consolidated financial statements.
Assumptions and judgment: During the current year, we performed a qualitative assessment for the annual review of goodwill balances for impairment. Management first considered events and circumstances that may affect the fair value of the reporting unit to determine whether it was necessary to perform the quantitative impairment test. Management focused on the significant inputs utilized in the most recent quantitative assessment and any events or circumstances that could affect the significant inputs, including, but not limited to, financial performance compared with actual and projected results of relevant prior periods, legal, regulatory, contractual, competitive, economic, political, business or other factors, and industry and market considerations, such as a deteriorating operating environment or increased competition.
When performing a quantitative assessment for the annual review of goodwill balances for impairment, we estimate the fair value of each of our reporting units based on projected future operating results and cash flows, market assumptions and/or comparative market multiple methods. Determining fair value requires significant estimates and assumptions based on an evaluation of a number of factors, such as marketplace participants, relative market share, new student interest, student retention, future expansion or contraction expectations, amount and timing of future cash flows and the discount rate applied to the cash flows. Projected future operating results and cash flows used for valuation purposes do reflect improvements relative to recent historical periods with respect to, among other things, modest revenue growth and operating margins. Although we believe our projected future operating results and cash flows and related estimates regarding fair values are based on reasonable assumptions, historically projected operating results and cash flows have not always been achieved. The failure of one of our reporting units to achieve projected operating results and cash flows in the near term or long term may reduce the estimated fair value of the reporting unit below its carrying value and result in the recognition of a goodwill impairment charge. Significant management judgment is necessary to evaluate the impact of operating and macroeconomic changes and to estimate future cash flows. Assumptions used in our impairment evaluations, such as forecasted growth rates and our cost of capital, are based on the best available market information and are consistent with our internal forecasts and operating plans. In addition to cash flow estimates, our valuations are sensitive to the rate used to discount cash flows and future growth assumptions. These assumptions could be adversely impacted by certain of the risks discussed in Item 1A, “Risk Factors,” in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
Impact if actual results differ from assumptions and judgment: Changes in these qualitative and quantitative factors, as well as downturns in economic or business conditions, could have a significant adverse impact on the fair value of our reporting units in relation to their respective carrying values of goodwill and could result in an impairment loss affecting our consolidated financial statements as a whole. Generally, an impairment loss would reduce our net income for the reporting period being presented, and proportionally reduce the value of the assets and equity reflected on our balance sheet.
We did not record any goodwill impairment charges during the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021, and have $243.5 million of goodwill as of December 31, 2022.
Income Taxes
Description: We are subject to the income tax laws of the U.S. and various state and local jurisdictions. These tax laws are complex and subject to interpretation. As a result, significant judgments and interpretations are required in determining our income tax provisions (benefits) and evaluating our uncertain tax positions.
We account for income taxes in accordance with FASB ASC Topic 740 - Income Taxes. Topic 740 requires the recognition of deferred income tax assets and liabilities based upon the income tax consequences of temporary differences between financial reporting and income tax reporting by applying enacted statutory income tax rates applicable to future years to differences between the financial statement carrying amounts and the income tax basis of existing assets and liabilities. Topic 740 also requires that deferred income tax assets be reduced by a valuation allowance if it is more likely than not that some portion of the deferred income tax asset will not be realized.
Assumptions and judgment: In establishing a provision for income tax expense or a liability for an uncertain tax position, we must make judgments and interpretations about the application of inherently complex tax laws. We must also make estimates about when in the future certain items will affect taxable income in the various tax jurisdictions. Disputes over interpretations of the tax laws may be subject to review/adjudication by the court systems in the various tax jurisdictions or may be settled with the taxing authority upon examination or audit.
Impact if actual results differ from assumptions and judgment: Although we believe the judgments and estimates used are reasonable, actual results could differ and we may be exposed to changes in tax liability that could be material. To the extent we prevail in matters for which reserves have been established, or are required to pay amounts in excess of our reserves, our effective income tax rate in a given financial statement period could be materially affected. An unfavorable tax settlement would result in an increase in our effective income tax rate.
LIQUIDITY, FINANCIAL POSITION AND CAPITAL RESOURCES
As of December 31, 2022, cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash and available-for-sale short-term investments (“cash balances”) totaled $518.2 million. Restricted cash as of December 31, 2022 was $9.5 million and relates to amounts held in escrow accounts to secure post-closing indemnification obligations of the sellers pursuant to the Coding Dojo, CalSouthern and Hippo acquisitions. Our cash flows from operating activities have historically been adequate to fulfill our liquidity requirements. We have historically financed our operating activities, organic growth and acquisitions primarily through cash generated from operations and existing cash balances. We generated cash in 2022 as a result of improved operating performance and expect to continue to do so in 2023. We anticipate that we will be able to satisfy the cash requirements associated with, among other things, our working capital needs, capital expenditures, lease commitments and acquisitions through at least the next 12 months primarily with cash generated by operations and existing cash balances.
We maintain a balanced capital allocation strategy that focuses on maintaining a strong balance sheet and adequate liquidity, while (i) investing in organic projects at our universities, in particular technology-related initiatives which are designed to benefit our students, and (ii) evaluating diverse strategies to enhance stockholder value, including acquisitions that further extend the depth and breadth of our educational offerings and share repurchases. Ultimately, our goal is to deploy resources in a way that drives long term stockholder value while supporting and enhancing the academic value of our institutions.
On January 27, 2022, the Board of Directors of the Company approved a new stock repurchase program for up to $50.0 million which commenced March 1, 2022 and expires September 30, 2023. The timing of purchases and the number of shares repurchased under the program will be determined by the Company’s management and will depend on a variety of factors including stock price, trading volume and other general market and economic conditions, its assessment of alternative uses of capital, regulatory requirements and other factors. Share repurchases will remain a part of our capital allocation strategy. Since the March 1, 2022 inception date, the Company repurchased approximately 2.1 million shares for $23.1 million as of December 31, 2022.
On September 8, 2021, the Company and the subsidiary guarantors thereunder entered into a credit agreement with Wintrust Bank N.A. (“Wintrust”), in its capacities as the sole lead arranger, sole bookrunner, administrative agent and letter of credit issuer for the lenders from time to time parties thereto. The credit agreement provides the Company with the benefit of a $125.0 million senior secured revolving credit facility. The $125.0 million revolving credit facility under the credit agreement is scheduled to mature on September 8, 2024. So long as no default has occurred and other conditions have been met, the Company may request an increase in the aggregate commitment in an amount not to exceed $50.0 million. The loans and letter of credit obligations under the credit agreement are secured by substantially all assets of the Company and the subsidiary guarantors.
The credit agreement and the ancillary documents executed in connection therewith contain customary affirmative, negative and financial maintenance covenants. The Company is required to maintain unrestricted cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments in domestic accounts in an amount at least equal to the aggregate loan commitments then in effect. Acquisitions to be undertaken by the Company must meet certain criteria, and the Company’s ability to make restricted payments, including payments in connection with a repurchase of shares of our common stock, is subject to an aggregate maximum of $100.0 million per fiscal year. Upon the occurrence of certain regulatory events or if the Company’s unrestricted cash, cash equivalents and short term investments are less
than 125% of the aggregate amount of the loan commitments then in effect, the Company is required to maintain cash in a segregated, restricted account in an amount not less than the aggregate loan commitments then in effect. The credit agreement also contains customary representations and warranties, events of default, and rights and remedies upon the occurrence of any event of default thereunder, including rights to accelerate the loans, terminate the commitments and realize upon the collateral securing the obligations under the credit agreement. As of December 31, 2022, there were no amounts outstanding under the revolving credit facility.
The discussion above reflects management’s expectations regarding liquidity; however, as a result of the significance of the Title IV Program funds received by our students, we are highly dependent on these funds to operate our business. Any reduction in the level of Title IV funds that our students are eligible to receive or any impact on timing or our ability to receive Title IV Program funds, or any requirement to post a significant letter of credit to the Department, may have a significant impact on our operations and our financial condition. In addition, our financial performance is dependent on the level of student enrollments which could be impacted by external factors. See Item 1A, “Risk Factors.”
Sources and Uses of Cash
Operating Cash Flows
During the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021, net cash flows provided by operating activities totaled $148.2 million and $191.1 million, respectively. The decrease in cash flow from operations as compared to the prior year is primarily driven by a timing impact of the academic calendar redesign and the related cash collections as well as lower total student enrollments as we entered 2022.
Our primary source of cash flows from operating activities is tuition collected from our students. Our students derive the ability to pay tuition costs through the use of a variety of funding sources, including, among others, federal loan and grant programs, state grant programs, private loans and grants, institutional payment plans, private and institutional scholarships and cash payments. For the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021, approximately 79% and 81% of our institutions’ aggregate cash receipts from tuition payments came from Title IV Program funding. This percentage differs from the Title IV Program percentage calculated under the 90-10 Rule due to the treatment of certain funding types and certain student level limitations on what and how much to count as prescribed under the rule.
For further discussion of Title IV Program funding and other funding sources for our students, see Item 1, “Business - Student Financial Aid and Related Federal Regulation.”
Our primary uses of cash to support our operating activities include, among other things, cash paid and benefits provided to our employees for services, to vendors for products and services, to lessors for rents and operating costs related to leased facilities, to suppliers for textbooks and other institution supplies, and to federal, state and local governments for income and other taxes.
Investing Cash Flows	
During the year ended December 31, 2022, net cash flows used in investing activities totaled $326.8 million compared to net cash flows provided by investing activities of $54.3 million for the year ended December 31, 2021.
Purchases and Sales of Available-for-Sale Investments. Purchases and sales of available-for-sale investments resulted in a net cash outflow of $229.8 million for the current year as compared to net cash inflow of $121.9 million for the prior year.
Business acquisitions. For the year ended December 31, 2022, the Company completed the Coding Dojo and CalSouthern acquisitions and made total initial cash payments of $84.3 million. The year ended December 31, 2021 includes $57.1 million for payments related to the DigitalCrafts and Hippo acquisitions.
Capital Expenditures. Capital expenditures increased to $12.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2022 as compared to $10.5 million for the year ended December 31, 2021. Capital expenditures represented approximately 1.8% and 1.5% of revenue for the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021, respectively. For the year ending December 31, 2023, we expect capital expenditures to be approximately 1.0% - 2.0% of revenue.
Financing Cash Flows
During the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021, net cash flows used in financing activities totaled $27.7 million and $29.9 million, respectively.
Payments of employee tax associated with stock compensation. Payments of employee tax associated with stock compensation were $1.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2022 and $5.5 million for the year ended December 31, 2021.
Repurchase of stock. During the year ended December 31, 2022, we repurchased 2.1 million shares of our common stock for approximately $23.1 million at an average price of $11.02 per share as compared to 2.3 million shares of common stock repurchased for $25.3 million at an average price of $10.94 per share for the year ended December 31, 2021. Repurchases of stock during 2022 and 2021 were funded by cash generated from operating activities and existing cash balances. See Part II, Item 5 for more information.
Release of cash held in escrow. During the year ended December 31, 2022, we released $4.2 million of escrow associated with the Trident and Hippo acquisitions.
Contractual Obligations
As of December 31, 2022, future minimum cash payments due under contractual obligations for our non-cancelable operating lease arrangements were $39.1 million, with approximately $8.2 million due within the next 12 months. These future minimum cash payments reflect base rent and other fixed lease-related costs identified in the lease agreements but excludes variable costs such as common area maintenance payments and taxes, as these amounts are undeterminable at this time and may vary based on future circumstances. We lease most of our administrative and educational facilities under non-cancelable operating leases expiring at various dates through 2032. Lease terms generally range from one to ten years with one to four renewal options for extended terms.
As of December 31, 2022, we were not a party to any off-balance sheet financing or contingent payment arrangements, nor do we have any unconsolidated subsidiaries.
Changes in Financial Position - December 31, 2022 compared to December 31, 2021
Selected consolidated balance sheet account changes from December 31, 2021 to December 31, 2022 were as follows (dollars in thousands):
As of December 31,
% Change
ASSETS
CURRENT ASSETS:
Receivables, other
$
3,457
$
1,692
%
NON-CURRENT ASSETS:
Right of use asset, net
26,156
36,664
%
Goodwill
243,540
162,579
%
Intangible assets, net
53,564
32,208
%
LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS' EQUITY
CURRENT LIABILITIES:
Payroll and related benefits
40,306
25,312
%
Income taxes
7,814
%
NON-CURRENT LIABILITIES:
Other non-current liabilities
40,856
21,530
%
STOCKHOLDERS' EQUITY
Treasury stock
(301,624
)
(276,895
)
%
Receivables, other: The increase is primarily driven by interest income receivable related to our available for sale short term investments.
Right of use asset, net: The decrease is primarily driven by lease terminations and ROU asset impairments.
Goodwill: The increase in goodwill is attributable to the CalSouthern and Coding Dojo acquisitions.
Intangible assets, net: The increase in intangible assets is attributable to the CalSouthern and Coding Dojo acquisitions.
Payroll and related benefits: The increase is primarily driven by an increased compensation accrual as compared to the prior year end related to guaranteed payments.
Income taxes: The increase is primarily driven by tax reserves.
Other non-current liabilities: The increase is primarily driven by the escrow payable and contingent consideration payable associated with the Coding Dojo acquisition.
Treasury stock: The increase is driven primarily by the repurchase of the Company’s common stock during the current year for approximately $23.1 million.
Recent Accounting Pronouncements
See Note 4 “Recent Accounting Pronouncements” to our consolidated financial statements for a discussion of recent accounting pronouncements that may affect us.

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ITEM 7A. QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE DISCLOSURES ABOUT MARKET RISK
ITEM 7A. QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE DISCLOSURES ABOUT MARKET RISK
We are exposed to financial market risks, primarily changes in interest rates. We use various techniques to manage our interest rate risk. We have no derivative financial instruments or derivative commodity instruments, and believe the risk related to cash equivalents and available for sale investments is limited due to the adherence to our investment policy, which focuses on capital preservation and liquidity. In addition, we use asset managers who conduct initial and ongoing credit analysis on our investment portfolio and monitor that investments are in compliance with our investment policy. Despite the investment risk mitigation strategies
we employ, we may incur investment losses as a result of unusual and unpredictable market developments and may experience reduced investment earnings if the yields on investments deemed to be low risk remain low or decline.
Interest Rate Exposure
Our future investment income may fall short of expectations due to changes in interest rates or we may suffer losses in principal if we are forced to sell investments that have declined in market value due to changes in interest rates. At December 31, 2022, a 10% increase or decrease in interest rates applicable to our investments or borrowings would not have a material impact on our future earnings, fair values or cash flows.
Under the credit agreement, outstanding principal amounts bear annual interest at a fluctuating rate equal to 1.0% less than the administrative agent’s prime commercial rate, subject to a 3.0% minimum rate. A higher rate may apply to late payments or if any event of default exists. As of December 31, 2022, we had no outstanding borrowings under this facility.
Our financial instruments are recorded at their fair values as of December 31, 2022 and December 31, 2021. We believe that the exposure of our consolidated financial position and results of operations and cash flows to adverse changes in interest rates applicable to our investments or borrowings is not significant.

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ITEM 8. FINANCIAL STATEMENTS AND SUPPLEMENTARY DATA
ITEM 8. FINANCIAL STATEMENTS AND SUPPLEMENTARY DATA
The financial information required by Item 8 is contained in Part IV, Item 15 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

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ITEM 9. CHANGES IN AND DISAGREEMENTS WITH ACCOUNTANTS
ITEM 9. CHANGES IN AND DISAGREEMENTS WITH ACCOUNTANTS ON ACCOUNTING AND FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE
None.

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ITEM 9A. CONTROLS AND PROCEDURES
ITEM 9A. CONTROLS AND PROCEDURES
Evaluation of Disclosure Controls and Procedures
We completed an evaluation as of the end of the period covered by this Annual Report on Form 10-K (“Report”) under the supervision and with the participation of management, including our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, of the effectiveness of the design and operation of our disclosure controls and procedures pursuant to Rule 13a-15(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”). Based upon that evaluation, our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer concluded that, as of December 31, 2022, our disclosure controls and procedures were effective to provide reasonable assurance that (i) the information required to be disclosed by us in this Report was recorded, processed, summarized and reported within the time periods specified in the rules and forms provided by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), and (ii) information required to be disclosed by us in our reports that we file or submit under the Exchange Act is accumulated and communicated to our management, including our principal executive and principal financial officers, or persons performing similar functions, as appropriate to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosure.
Scope of Management’s Report on Internal Controls over Financial Reporting
Management excluded the acquisitions of CalSouthern and Coding Dojo in its evaluation of the effectiveness of the design and operation of our disclosure controls and procedures pursuant to Rule 13a-15(b) of the Exchange Act. CalSouthern and Coding Dojo were not material to consolidated results of operations for the year ended December 31, 2022 and together were less than 2.0% of total revenues for the year ended December 31, 2022. Additionally, CalSouthern and Coding Dojo were approximately 4.5% and 8.0% of total assets, respectively, as of December 31, 2022.
Changes in Internal Control over Financial Reporting
There were no changes in our internal control over financial reporting that occurred during the quarter ended December 31, 2022, that have materially affected, or are reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.
Inherent Limitations on the Effectiveness of Controls
Our management does not expect that our disclosure controls and procedures or our internal controls will prevent or detect all errors and all fraud. A control system, no matter how well conceived and operated, can provide only reasonable, not absolute, assurance that the objectives of the control system are met. Further, the design of a control system must reflect the fact that there are resource constraints, and the benefits of controls must be considered relative to their costs. Because of the inherent limitations in a cost-effective control system, no evaluation of controls can provide absolute assurance that misstatements due to error or fraud will not occur or that all control issues and instances of fraud, if any, within our Company have been detected.
These inherent limitations include the realities that judgments in decision-making can be faulty and that breakdowns can occur because of simple error or mistake. Controls can also be circumvented by the individual acts of some persons, by collusion of two or
more people, or by management override of the controls. The design of any system of controls is based in part on certain assumptions about the likelihood of future events, and there can be no assurance that any design will succeed in achieving its stated goals under all potential future conditions. Projections of any evaluation of controls effectiveness to future periods are subject to risks. Over time, controls may become inadequate because of changes in conditions or deterioration in the degree of compliance with policies or procedures.
Management’s Report on Internal Control over Financial Reporting
Our management is responsible for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over financial reporting as defined in Rules 13a-15(f) under the Exchange Act to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of our financial reporting and the preparation of the financial statements for external purposes in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles.
Based upon the evaluation under the framework contained in the 2013 Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission Report, management concluded that, as of December 31, 2022, our internal control over financial reporting was effective.
Grant Thornton LLP, our independent registered public accounting firm, who audited and reported on the consolidated financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2022 included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, has issued a report on the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting. This attestation report is included on page 63 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

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ITEM 9B. OTHER INFORMATION
ITEM 9B. OTHER INFORMATION
On February 21, 2023, Mr. Thomas B. Lally informed the Company that he will retire and not stand for re-election to the board of directors at the Company's annual stockholders meeting scheduled for May 25, 2023. Mr. Lally will continue to serve as a director until this stockholders meeting. His decision to not stand for re-election did not involve any disagreement with the Company.

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ITEM 10. DIRECTORS, EXECUTIVE OFFICERS AND CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
ITEM 10. DIRECTORS, EXECUTIVE OFFICERS AND CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
Below is a list of our Executive Officers and Board of Directors as of February 23, 2023:
Executive Officers:
Board of Directors:
Andrew H. Hurst
Todd S. Nelson - Executive Chairman of the Board
President and Chief Executive Officer
Former President and Chief Executive Officer of Perdoceo Education Corporation
Ashish R. Ghia
Thomas B. Lally - Lead Independent Director
Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer
Former President of Heller Equity Capital Corporation
Elise L. Baskel
Dennis H. Chookaszian
Senior Vice President - Colorado Technical University
Former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of CNA Financial Corporation
David C. Czeszewski
Kenda B. Gonzales
Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer
Former Chief Financial Officer of Harrison Properties, LLC
Greg E. Jansen
Patrick W. Gross
Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary
Chairman of the Lovell Group
John R. Kline
William D. Hansen
Senior Vice President - American InterContinental University System
President and Chief Executive Officer of Building Hope Holdings, Inc.
Michele A. Peppers
Andrew H. Hurst
Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer
President and Chief Executive Officer of Perdoceo Education Corporation
Gregory L. Jackson
Private Investor
Leslie T. Thornton
Former Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of WGL Holdings, Inc. and Washington Gas
Alan D. Wheat
Chair of Wheat Shroyer Government Relations
The other information required by this item is incorporated herein by reference to our definitive Proxy Statement to be filed in connection with our 2023 Annual Meeting of Stockholders.

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ITEM 11. EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION
ITEM 11. EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION
The information required by this item is incorporated herein by reference to our definitive Proxy Statement to be filed in connection with our 2023 Annual Meeting of Stockholders.

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ITEM 12. SECURITY OWNERSHIP OF CERTAIN BENEFICIAL OWNERS
ITEM 12. SECURITY OWNERSHIP OF CERTAIN BENEFICIAL OWNERS AND MANAGEMENT AND RELATED STOCKHOLDER MATTERS
Certain of the information required by this item is incorporated herein by reference to our definitive Proxy Statement to be filed in connection with our 2023 Annual Meeting of Stockholders.
The following table provides information as of December 31, 2022, with respect to shares of our common stock that may be issued under our existing equity compensation plans:
EQUITY COMPENSATION PLAN INFORMATION
(a)
(b)
(c)
Plan Category
Number of shares to be
issued upon exercise of
outstanding options
Weighted-average exercise
price of outstanding options
Number of shares
remaining available for
future issuances under
equity compensation
plans (excluding
securities reflected in
column (a))
Equity compensation plans approved by stockholders
851,082
(1)
$
9.45
5,640,989
(2)
Total
851,082
$
9.45
5,640,989
(1)Includes outstanding options to purchase shares of our common stock under the Company’s 2008 Incentive Compensation Plan (the “2008 Plan”) and Amended and Restated 2016 Incentive Compensation Plan (the “2016 Plan”).
(2)Includes shares available for future issuance under the 2016 Plan in addition to the number of shares issuable upon exercise of outstanding options referenced in column (a). In addition to stock options, the 2016 Plan provides for the issuance of stock appreciation rights, restricted stock and units, deferred stock, dividend equivalents, other stock-based awards, performance awards and units, or cash incentive awards. The amount in column (c) is net of 2.7 million shares underlying restricted stock units outstanding as of December 31, 2022, which will be settled in shares of our common stock if the vesting conditions are met and thus reduce the common stock available for future share-based awards under the 2016 Plan by the amount vested. These shares take into account the anticipated vesting levels based on projected attainment of performance conditions for performance-based restricted stock units and have been multiplied by the applicable factor under the 2016 Plan to determine the remaining shares available as of December 31, 2022. Additionally, there were less than 0.1 million shares underlying deferred stock units outstanding under the previous 2008 Plan which will be settled in shares of our common stock if the vesting conditions are met and do not affect the number of shares reflected in column (c) above.
See Note 14 “Share-Based Compensation” to our consolidated financial statements for more information regarding the Company’s share-based compensation.

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ITEM 13. CERTAIN RELATIONSHIPS AND RELATED TRANSACTIONS
ITEM 13. CERTAIN RELATIONSHIPS AND RELATED TRANSACTIONS, AND DIRECTOR INDEPENDENCE
The information required by this item is incorporated herein by reference to our definitive Proxy Statement to be filed in connection with our 2023 Annual Meeting of Stockholders.

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ITEM 14. PRINCIPAL ACCOUNTING FEES AND SERVICES
ITEM 14. PRINCIPAL ACCOUNTANT FEES AND SERVICES
The information required by this item is incorporated herein by reference to our definitive Proxy Statement to be filed in connection with our 2023 Annual Meeting of Stockholders.
PART IV

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ITEM 15. EXHIBITS, FINANCIAL STATEMENT SCHEDULES
ITEM 15. EXHIBITS AND FINANCIAL STATEMENT SCHEDULES
1.	Financial Statements
The financial statements listed in the Index to Financial Statements on page 60 are filed as part of this Annual Report.
2.	Financial Statement Schedules
The financial statement schedule listed in the Index to Financial Statements on page 60 is filed as part of this Annual Report. All other schedules have been omitted because the required information is included in the consolidated financial statements or notes thereto or because they are not applicable or not required.
3.	Exhibits
The exhibits listed in the Index to Exhibits on pages 56 - 58 are filed as part of this Annual Report.