Q2 2023 Grand Canyon Education Inc Earnings Call
Okay.
Good day and thank you for standing by welcome to the second quarter 2023 Grand Canyon Education Earnings Conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speaker's presentation there'll be a question and answer session.
To ask a question during this session you'll need to press star one one on your telephone and you will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised to work.
Draw. Your question. Please press star one again.
Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.
I'd now like to hand, the conference over to your Speaker today, Dan back as Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.
Joining me on today's call is our chairman and CEO , Brian Mueller. Please note that many of our comments today will contain forward looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties.
Various factors could cause our actual results to be materially different from any future results expressed or implied by such statements.
These factors are discussed in our SEC filings, including our annual report on Form 10-K quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and current reports on form 8-K, we undertake no obligation to provide updates with regard to the forward looking statements made during this call and we recommend that all investors review. These reports thoroughly before taking a financial position in G.
And with that I will turn the call over to Brian .
Good afternoon, and thank you for joining Grand Canyon, Education's second quarter fiscal year 2023 conference call.
He GCE had a very good quarter exceeding enrollment expectations by producing new starts that were approximately 20% over prior year and also producing greater than expected retention numbers exceeding revenue guidance estimates at midpoint by $3 $1 million in producing and 11 cent beat in adjusted diluted.
Earnings per share to consensus.
Article that recently appeared in Fortune magazine titled the Labor shortage is pushing American colleges into crisis with the plunge in enrollments the worst ever recorded Arthur calling basically says the following nationwide undergraduate college enrollments dropped 8% from 2019 to 2022 with declines even out.
After returning to in person classes. According to data from the National student clearinghouse.
The slide in the college going rates since 2018 is the steepest on record. According to U S Bureau of Labor statistics, economic economists say the impact could be dire.
Your college graduates could worsen labor shortages in fields from health care to information technology.
Grand Canyon education, and its twenty-five University partners are experiencing significant growth in spite of declines in the overall market and that growth will continue for the reasons I will explain as I review the four platforms, we use to deliver higher education for.
The online campus at Grand Canyon University, New starts were up approximately 20% over the second quarter of the prior year and total enrollment has returned to positive growth again at four 1%.
There are many reasons for this but I want to highlight four number one we have state hyper focused on opportunities that exist in todays labor market and since the beginning of the pandemic have rolled out 66, new programs at the CS and certificates across the nine colleges at G. C U E.
These programs are tied directly to labor market opportunities for students and accounted for 10.8% of the new students that started in the second quarter one.
One of the responses of universities to the declining enrollments during the pandemic was to reduce the number of programs they offered.
Number two we continue to work with employers directly to address their workforce shortages. This effort is focused on the industries of education health care technology public safety in the military.
In the second quarter, 31% of the new starts came from that work.
Number three the retention of students in the second quarter went up 20 basis points, which we believe continues to improve because of the relevancy of their programs to students R. Emery.
Number four GCU has resisted responding to the absorbed growth during the pandemic by raising tuition, which many institutions have done online net tuition increases since 2018 about average approximately 1% per year.
Second platform the GCU ground campus for traditional students.
There is a clear trend here that we are uniquely positioned to respond to.
Working adult students post pandemic are more inclined to work from home and to do higher education from home.
It is now becoming a trend for traditional age students as well.
We have been projecting between 10 and 11000, new students for the GCU ground campus for the fall of 2023.
We will be greater than the 11000 number but with approximately 9000, new students coming to campus and greater than 2000 traditional age students starting GCU programs online between April and September these.
These students may come to campus eventually or May do the entire program from home.
The greater than 2000 students are traditional age students, but we are currently counting them in our online campus numbers.
They accounted for about 6% of our approximately 20% increase in new starts in the second quarter at the online campus.
This will slightly impact our room board and other exhilarate revenue attributed to ground students, but be offset by increased revenue due to higher than expected overall student counts.
Third Grand Canyon, Education's hybrid campus had a decline in enrollment year over year, a five 2% in the second quarter. However.
However, the hybrid campuses definitely turning the corner.
We are now projecting new fall enrollments to be up in the mid to high single digits year over year, and we expect the growth rate in spring 2024 to be even higher.
There are two main reasons for this.
Number one all but one of our active a b S. N partners have responded to the younger students interested in a b S. M programs by admitting advanced standing students. This fall or are in the process of making that change.
This is up from only 11, one year ago Steve.
Students with partially completed degrees haven't accumulated a great deal of debt and are very interested in nursing careers, but didn't have an efficient way to earn the prerequisite science coursework.
TCU created the science courses and some other gen. Ed courses, so they could be delivered online in eight weeks.
Students can access these courses from anywhere in the world.
Our start opportunities almost every week east courses have been made very affordable are taught by experienced faculty class sizes are low and there's a tremendous amount of academic support including artificial intelligence project going live in September that will provide students 24, seven access to tutoring.
Since we implemented these courses we have already enrolled 3068 students.
We have a waterfall report that allows us to know how students are progressing through their prerequisite courses and when they will be eligible to start at one of our a b S N sites.
The success rate of students, who successfully enter our a b S. N programs is 90% and.
And the first time pass rate on the MPLX exam remains approximately 90%.
We now have an extremely efficient way to get students academically eligible and prepare to enter the programs.
We are seeing positive results as we look at third quarter enrollments and believe it will get better from there.
Fourth platform the center for workforce development at Grand Canyon University.
And the 2022 23 school year, we started 80 students and electricians pre apprentice ship program in partnership with companies that are experiencing labor shortages in that area and are excited about hiring our graduates.
The program consists of four four credit courses it runs one semester.
74 students successfully completed the program.
This upcoming school year, we'll start 220 students in the program and expect the same results.
This fall we also start 20 students in a manufacturing certificate program.
<unk> was running a small parts manufacturing business on campus. It is doing work for some of the major companies in Arizona DC.
These students will go to school for 20 hours a week and then work in that facility as a paid employee for 20 hours.
At the end of the semester, they will receive a manufacturing certificate and the LNG for eligible for employment in Arizona as fast growing manufacturing industry.
Gcu's growing engineering College will also have students assisting with this project.
Once this concept has been successfully proved out we expect to work with GCU to scale. This program and then add others.
I started out talking about the fear that exists around future labor shortages in key industries as a result of declining enrollments and higher education across the country.
In the five years since GCE has become a service provider. It has helped US partners accomplish the following.
And that time GCE has helped Grand Canyon University graduate of 140331 students third.
38722 in education, including 19042 first time teachers at a time when teacher shortages have created a national crisis.
39590 in nursing and health care professions, including 1900, 39 pre licensure nurses at a time when there's a huge shortage of nurses.
26905, and the college of Humanities, and social Sciences, including.
In counseling and social work, where there are also huge shortages.
That business has become one of the largest business schools in America and has produced 24179 graduates the college of Science Engineering and technology has grown by 187% and provided 5291 graduates.
Doctor will College honors College and college of Theology also continued to grow the.
The numbers that I have just decided have all happened in the five years since GCU has become a nonprofit institution and GCE has become an education services provider.
Service revenue was $210 $6 million for the second quarter of 2023, an increase of $10 8 million or five 4% as compared to $199 8 million for the second quarter of 2022.
The increase year over year in service revenue was primarily due to an increase in GCU enrollments of four 1% and an increase in revenue per student year over year.
Operating income for the three months ended June 32023 was $35 4 million, an increase of $1 6 million as compared to $33 8 million for the same period in 2022.
The operating margin for the three months ended June 32023 was 16, 8% compared to the 16, 9% for the same period in 2022.
Net income increased 13, 3% to $29 million for the second quarter of 2023 compared to $25 6 million for the same period in 2022.
GAAP diluted income per share for the three months ended June 32023 is 96 cents.
As adjusted non-GAAP diluted income per share for the three months ended June 32023 is a dollar in one sense.
Okay.
Thanks, Brian included in our form 8-K filed with the SEC. We have included non-GAAP net income and non-GAAP diluted income per share for the three months ended June 30th 2023 and 2022.
The non-GAAP amounts exclude the tax affected amount of the amortization of intangible assets of $2 1 million in the second quarters of both 2023, and 2022 and the tax affected amount of the losses on fixed asset disposal of 0.1 million for the three months ended June 32023.
We believe the non-GAAP financial information allows investors to develop a more meaningful understanding of the company's performance over time.
As adjusted non-GAAP diluted income per share for the three months ended June 32023, and 2022 is a dollar one and 85 cents respectively.
Service revenue was higher than our expectations in the second quarter of 2023 due to higher GCU enrollments and the higher than expected ancillary revenues at GCU.
Hybrid revenues were in line with our expectations. The hybrid enrollment growth rate is being impacted on a year over year basis due to the timing of site openings and the decline year over year and the enrollment at some of the mature sites due to the challenges previously discussed.
Revenue per student continues to grow on a year over year basis, primarily due to the service revenue impact of the growth and the GCU traditional campus enrollments between years, which has a higher revenue per student due to room board and other ancillary revenues the higher revenue per student at off campus classroom and laboratory sites.
Service revenue per student for hybrid a BSN students generates a significantly higher revenue per student than we earn on the other students as these agreements generally provide us with a higher revenue share percentage the partners have higher tuition rates and the majority of their students take more credits on average per semester is there an accelerated programs. The increase in revenue per student was also.
Positively impacted in the second quarter of 2023 by year over year differences in the timing of the GCU traditional campus as spring semester.
That $4 5 million shifted from the first quarter to the second quarter as compared to the last year.
Our operating margin was higher than our expectations, primarily due to the higher than expected revenue.
As I discussed on prior quarters earnings calls, we have been aggressively hiring and which head count had been mostly flat since March 2020 to meet our partners' expected future growth, which is driving increased compensation costs, primarily in counseling services and support.
We also plan for a significant increase year over year in travel and employee benefits as those amounts were significantly lower pre COVID-19.
Lower than than pre COVID-19 levels in the prior year. We also plan for increased clinical costs at off campus classroom and laboratory sites due to the nursing shortage. The spending is generally remained in line with our expectations.
Our effective tax rate for the second quarter of 2023 was 23, 8% compared to 25, 2% in the second quarter of 2022, and our guidance of 24, 9%.
Second quarter 2023 effective tax rate was favorably impacted by the resolution of some state income tax audits.
We've repurchased 418432 shares of our common stock in the second quarter of 2023 at a cost of approximately $45 3 million and another 128013 shares were repurchased since June 32023, we have $102 million remaining available as of today under a REIT.
Share repurchase authorization.
The board and the company intends to continue using a significant portion of its cash flows from operations to repurchase shares but share repurchases in future years will be less in 2021 and 2022 as we've utilized all the proceeds from the repayment of the secured note during the past few years.
Turning to the balance sheet and cashless total unrestricted cash and short term investments on June 32023, or $233 4 million.
GCE capex in the second quarter of 2023, including Capex for new off campus classroom and laboratory sites was approximately $9 million or four 3% of service revenue. We continue to expect Capex for 2023 to be similar to 2022 at between 30 and $35 million.
I'd like to provide color on the updated guidance. We have provided in our 8-K filed today as a reminder of the guidance that we've provided in the outlook section of our 8-K filed today as GAAP net income and diluted income per share with the components to adjust.
The GAAP amounts to non-GAAP as adjusted net income and non-GAAP as adjusted diluted income per share. In addition, as requested by a number of investors. We have included in the guidance section of our 8-K filed today the non-GAAP as adjusted diluted income per share estimates.
We have updated full year 2023 guidance to include the second quarter revenue and earnings beats.
I will discuss in more detail in a minute we have narrowed the revenue and operating margin ranges for the third and fourth quarters and have raised the revenue guidance at midpoint in the third quarter and slightly lowered it in the fourth quarter exclude.
Excluding the contribution of loot in lieu of state income taxes paid in July we have lowered expenses for each of the last few quarters and we have updated other income the tax rate and weighted average shares outstanding amounts for the second half of the year, which has resulted in an 11% increase in EPS estimates for the second half of 2023 at midpoint.
At 22, <unk> increase in full year EPS estimates at midpoint from the estimated estimates we provided last quarter and a 30 <unk> increase in full year EPS estimates at midpoint from the original 2023 estimates.
As Brian mentioned earlier, we anticipate total enrollment to be higher in the second half than our original estimates, which should result in higher than expected tuition revenue in both the third and fourth quarters.
Our second half revenue will be negatively impacted by slightly lower ancillary revenues at GCU as Brian discussed and slightly lower hybrid revenues due to contract changes going into effect that as discussed on prior calls and which will no longer reimburse some clients for certain costs and as a result of agreed to reduce the contractual revenue.
<unk> shared percentage.
The delay in the opening of the Southern California location also will impact hybrid revenues in the second half of 2023, but we anticipate exceeding our revenue expectations at the GCU locations and some of our other partners, which will help offset the reduction in hybrid revenues.
These items all impact both the third and fourth quarters, but have a much bigger impact on the on the fourth quarter than the third quarter as they are all all of them go into effect with the start of the fall term.
Online new enrollment growth should remain above our long term objectives in the second half of 2023, but due to much more difficult comps the growth rate will decline from the growth rates in the first half of 2023.
As Brian mentioned, the new hybrid enrollment growth rate should be in the mid to high single digits in the fall semester and should accelerate even more in the spring semester.
Other than the reduction in expenses expenses associated with the contract changes the delayed opening in southern California, and the contributions in lieu of state income taxes of $3 5 million paid in July 2023, there've been no material changes in our expense expectations for the second half of 2023.
The contribution in lieu of state income taxes as the tax credit and thus has no impact on second half net income, but does does increase G&A G&A expense in the third quarter and decreases the effective tax rate in the second half of the year roughly 75% in the third quarter and 25% in the fourth quarter.
As a result of this and a tax refund received in the third quarter of 2023, we have lowered our effective tax rate for the last two quarters of 2023 to 18, 6% in the third quarter of 2023 and 21, 3% in the fourth quarter are.
Our weighted average shares guidance assumes that we purchase most of the remaining amount authorized by our board evenly over the rest of the year.
The board continues to authorized the repurchase of shares as it believes the stock remains undervalued based on the metrics. It uses to evaluate including the ratio of enterprise value to adjusted EBITDA and the free cash flow yield rather than the multiples of other education companies as although we can't can be viewed as being in the same sector. There are few if any appropriate comps.
On an enterprise value to adjusted EBITDA basis. The stock is currently trading at roughly 11, which is less than the recent S&P average of $16 four and the average free cash flow yield for the S&P 500 at two 8%, whereas the company's free cash flow yield is approximately six 1%.
I will now turn the call over the moderator so that we can answer questions.
Thank you.
Now conduct a question and answer session. As a reminder to ask a question. Please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced to withdraw. Your question. Please press star one again, please standby, while we compile our Q&A roster.
A moment please.
Our first question comes from Jeff Miller with Baird. Please proceed.
Yes. Thank you just maybe to make the guidance a little bit more apples to apples before we can so we can better assess some of the other changes can you just help us bandwidth the changes in the contract structure around the reimbursed cost just.
Roughly the sizing of that impact.
When you when you take the.
Impacts unexpected impacts, including the contract change and the delayed opening of.
The southern California, it's approximately a $2 million reduction in revenue.
And expense.
Okay.
And Brian the dynamic around the traditional age students electing to start online.
Stead of.
On the campus.
Anything you can say about.
The geography of the students like is this mostly dynamic with non Arizona students or is that not the case.
And then how.
Does it impact from the University perspective plans for.
How youre thinking about campus expansion over the next few years.
Yes.
It's going to be very interesting because I talked about.
America, changing and it really is.
The desire of people to work from home to educate their kids closer to home to go to college closer to home that that's part of what's going on there.
There are a lot of students out there that are they have part time jobs is high school students were making really good money $2022 an hour.
And and inflation is definitely impacted middle class families and so when they see an opportunity to maybe finish their degree program from home in two or three years.
Keep their part time job, maintaining the friendships and relationships they happen and they have and those kind of things that becomes attractive to them.
There is something else happening, though that I didn't talk about which is theres a lot of.
Panic out there with universities.
And they're making incredible theyre offering students incredible deals.
Deals that unless they can significantly change their cost structure expense structure. They are not going to be able to give those deals out again, our second third and fourth year and so it's going to be interesting to see what happens about halfway through the second semester of next year when students find out the deal they got their freshman year theyre not going.
Get their second year, we didn't fall into that temptation.
We're very transparent we offer the students a deal that's very specific to what their grade point averages.
And.
And so as a result of that we may have missed out on some students that otherwise we would have gotten so.
How long is that going to last I don't know this is such an attractive place to be.
For a lot of reasons Arizona's economy is growing so fast our programs are extremely relevant 50% of our students. All most are graduating in three years, they're graduating with less debt and so when we get through this period of time, where this panic has gone on.
We'll see how things level out.
Next year.
The good thing for us is that.
We are uniquely positioned if this continues the way it is.
We can continue being very successful offering students an opportunity to do this from home how will this impact what we do on our campus.
Sure.
<unk> been building to residence halls of year will build will start the construction of one next year, which will be finished the following year.
And so we will construct one instead of two.
And then we will just see how this thing goes.
The important thing is that we have land to build this thing out to somewhere close to 50000 students.
And.
We can build just in time, we've been doing this for a decade now and so we're out in front from a classroom and laboratory standpoint, we're a little bit out right now from a residence Hall perspective.
This will take some pressure off the capex expense of GCU.
And allow them to accumulate even more cash which is a very good thing and so.
Regardless of which way this trend goes going forward I think we're really positioned to respond to it.
In addition.
I can't I just can't over estimate how excited we are about to turn that's going on with our hybrid campuses.
We created those courses very specifically those prereq courses.
And.
Rolled them out approximately a year ago.
And we've already got 3000 students in.
In those courses.
We're only at 50% capacity in terms of filling spots we have in our current 35 locations.
And as those numbers continue to grow those prereq students continue to grow we're going to have a real solid look into how quickly we're going to be able to fill all the spots in our 35 locations and of course, we're going to continue to add locations and so.
Since those students are in such those graduates are in such dire need.
Because theyre going to be starting really good careers and because we have a 90% success rate once they get there.
The revenue per student I know students is significantly higher than either our online students or our ground campus students and so.
<unk>.
We think we're extremely well positioned regardless of how this thing goes in that in the next couple of years.
And on the hybrid is the expected acceleration in starts this fall and next spring entirely about the Prereq program.
I don't think that was the same store sales number so.
The new campus launches play into that as well.
And any sort of change in trends in the <unk>.
Traditional career change your students.
Demand.
It's really three things number one.
A while for our partners to understand that the market changed.
The unemployment is so low that students that have completed degrees.
The decision to leave a 60 or $70000 a year job.
Spend 50, or 60000 to make a little bit more money.
People people backed away from that but b.
The the number of students and the excitement of younger students who are just graduated from high school or have some community college experience the opportunity for them now to have a clear path into ABS and program. Our partner institutions now know that that's where the market is and there are really.
Good students available in that area.
And so the fact that.
We've now have only one partner who is resisting what we call those advanced standards standards students. That's been part of the increase that youre going to see in third and fourth quarter. So that's one thing.
Second thing is definitely the.
The prerequisites that was that was a major bottleneck students would come in they would ask for advice and people would send them to a community college or a state University, where they could start maybe in the fall semester, which was still three months away or the spring semester, which was four months or five months away and then you had no look into how things.
We're going for them.
The fact that we now have these courses specifically designed around with a nurse needs to know about biology, chemistry anatomy physiology et cetera.
There are eight week courses.
They are priced very.
Youre very affordable and you can access them from anywhere in the world that's completely changed.
The picture for students because they're not borrowing money to complete those most of them are not borrowing money to complete those first courses not knowing what are they can get into the program.
And so it's a much better.
Deal for them.
Once they see they're going to be able to complete the courses and finish them the decision to borrow the money because they are now only 12 months to 16 months away from their Bachelor of Science in Nursing program is really easy to make.
Given the job openings to pay in all of that and so I think we've eliminated.
Amazed I know we have eliminated a major bottleneck.
Councillors out there are very excited because when they refer students to these courses they have a look into how theyre doing all the way through so they know that student X has five courses to take they've completed three they've got to to go which means theyre going to be eligible for example for the fall semester at one of our partner institutions.
And so that's the second.
Major reason that debt that we now have.
A much brighter picture and things should accelerate from here and get back to where we thought they would be when we first bought the company.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
Moment please.
Our last question comes from Jeff Silber with BMO. Please proceed.
Hey, this is Ryan on for Jeff last quarter, you had called out some issues with conversion and the funnel for the ground campus.
And your outlook it looks like that improved a lot during the quarter can you just explain what drove some of the upside from the last time, we spoke.
On the ground side or the online side.
On the ground campus.
Since the last time, we spoke the only real difference is that.
We had a surge.
Percentage of students, who want to come to Grand Canyon that wanted to do it online.
And so we're going to exceed the number of students in that add each category that we thought we would put into our program.
But.
It's the continued inflationary pressures that families are experiencing that has caused certain students to say.
Would love to have that experience about being on your campus, but.
I'm going to hold off.
And I'm going to go online so they begin their coursework and they may come in the second semester. They may come at the first of the year.
So unlike what's going on and a lot of universities, where they just have a declining enrollment.
Because they don't have the flexibilities to give people options.
When changes like this happened and there is a lot of things changing in America right now with people, becoming comfortable working from home educating their kids from home going to college from home.
I mean, that's definitely change things people are getting more comfortable with that but then inflation.
Inflation is very real for middle class families in our ground campuses.
Big Middle class play.
We have our upper middle Upper class students and upper Middle class students because of the work we're doing in our neighborhood. We have significant numbers of students that come from the lower socioeconomic strata, but we're mainly a middle class play.
And there's a significant amount of inflationary pressure on those families and so they're taking more conservative approaches and they're holding off.
Now the other thing that's changed as I said since the last time, we talked is that we didn't anticipate schools, making the kind of deals they are making.
One of our issues is that we are extremely transparent and very objective, we don't change criteria.
It's very specific around what your GPA is and there are other criteria and that determines your scholarship amounts and what you owe in that amount historically has been really really good still is as compared to private universities state universities.
Have really started to make deals that.
Don't make any sense to me.
No that theyre getting declining subsidies from the state governments, that's happening all over the country.
And so unless they can it change your expense structure significantly I don't know they can make those deals.
In years, two three and four we will see.
Either way.
We've got the ability because of our flexibility to offer students a lot of different options, which I think puts us in a great place.
Okay. Thank you and then just on the last pillar some of those apprenticeship and workforce development.
Just thinking longer term, how big do you think those could be and how.
Meaningful down the line do you think they are and.
Additionally, what other.
Corporate when it makes sense to partner with.
I think you've highlighted electricians before.
It's very meaningful.
How meaningful it's going to be to our financials, we will see.
But extremely meaningful in terms of the work we're doing.
We've got.
Now the 16th ranked campus in the country, we've got brand new classrooms, and laboratories throughout our campus. We're building it out silicon serve 50000 people, but even with that said, we have 300000 square feet of empty engineering space in the late afternoons and evenings.
And so our ability to create these programs mainly for the employers and the southwest.
I am very surprised by a couple of things one with the with the pre apprenticeship program for electricians.
It wasn't there wasn't a lot of there wasn't a lot of expensive.
The capex that we needed to spend to make that happen we needed to teach the kids math.
In classrooms with Whiteboards.
And so that.
What's surprising to me that's extremely scalable.
The machinist thing is equally as exciting because.
Manufacturing is really coming back to this country, it's really coming back to Arizona.
And so the potential.
For us to really scale that as a business.
It's exciting.
A couple of our former students brought the idea to me.
And we they purchased I gave them the space for free paid for their utilities. They bought five machines. We did they did so well the first year that we know.
We have low number one and a half million dollars. They bought 15 more machines and so we are running a business, where we're actually selling parts to people like Honeywell.
And they're going out to get the business theyre producing the parts are doing a fantastic job and so being able to bring recent high school graduates into that kind of environment and have them learn while theyre going to school.
It has a tremendous amount of potential and we can finance that thing through the profits that we're going to make and so.
We're just in the beginning phases of this thing could it become meaningful as a.
<unk> component to this business it could be.
But in the meantime, it's going to be extremely meaningful from the standpoint of us offering kids that come out of lower incomes home a chance to get into the middle class jobs.
And the state of Arizona.
Maricopa County, you heard about the program.
And they.
They gave us a $750000 check to write it we said we didn't really need it but we'll take it.
We spent all but $380000.
We didn't spend 80 380000 of the 750 and at the end of the year. They were just shocked. They said this is not what goes on people spend all the money.
We took the 380000 put it towards.
Next year, and so it's a whole new experience for us.
It is so tied directly to specific companies in Arizona.
They're telling us how many electricians they need how many machines.
Machinist, they need and we are developing a process to produce those so the students can move right into a job when they are through the one semester of.
Of work and I got to tell you, we're having graduations for these kids and they bring their entire families. It's a pretty.
Amazing project.
In the beginning phases in.
We will keep updating you as we move forward.
That's great to hear and then just last one for me anything to call out on the regulatory front, whether it's.
Gainful employment or otherwise and then any color on I'll talk to you might be having with the department of better.
Any other commentary there.
No.
Not really.
It's the same.
For us our metrics are so good graduation rates very very low cohort default rates 90, 10 calculation continues to go down.
<unk> full employment, we would potentially have an issue with our education programs first time teachers and were working on.
That with our local state representatives.
I don't think.
Yes.
That would be ridiculous to stop that we produced 19001st time teachers in the next in the last five years. So.
The same thing there.
They're talking about maybe bringing back some of the same kinds of rules, which if they do for the most part we have no trouble with that our metrics are very good.
We will get this thing resolved.
With the department of Ed.
But in the meantime, it absolutely does not impact what's going on it doesn't impact.
Our growth.
99, 5% of our students have no idea one way or the other they just love the programs that they are in and.
And so no.
Nothing to really update you on from that standpoint.
Okay. Thank you.
We have reached the end of our second quarter Conference call. We appreciate your time and interest in Grand Canyon Education. If you still have questions. Please contact myself Dan Bachus. Thank you very much for your time.
Thank you. This concludes the conference call. Thank you for participating and you may now disconnect.
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Okay.
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