Sara Gubins, Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Great. Then, on the regulatory front, the final gainful employment regulations are out. Do you think that you don’t have to make any meaningful changes to address the final rule?
Greg Cappelli, Chief Executive Officer, Apollo Education Group, Inc.
We still don’t have all the data that’s necessary to conclude – give you a conclusive answer there, but I feel good that we’re in a good position and we’ll make any adjustments we need for gainful employment and make sure we’re in compliance moving forward.
Sara Gubins, Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Okay. Then just last question, should we expect M&A to remain the main area of focus for cash after investing in the core business or do you think we might see more share repurchase?
Brian Swartz, SVP and Chief Financial Officer, Apollo Education Group, Inc.
Yeah. I mean, it could vary Sara. We have been I think pretty diligent over the course of last year, year and a half, trying to do it, return capital to shareholders on kind of a consistent basis. As you know, our top priority is investing in our existing institutions to support them and help them grow and differentiate, then secondarily investing in acquisition opportunities to move the enterprise value of the business, and then after that returning capital to shareholders.
We’ve been pretty consistent I think on our philosophy there. It could move around. I don’t want to make any commitments, but we definitely would like to put more money in the acquisitions both internationally and domestically.
Greg Cappelli, Chief Executive Officer, Apollo Education Group, Inc.
Only when they make sense on a return long-term value creating sustained basis to our shareholders.
Sara Gubins, Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Okay. Thank you.
Greg Cappelli, Chief Executive Officer, Apollo Education Group, Inc.
Thank you.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Jerry Herman with Stifel. Your line is open.
Jerry Herman, Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Inc.
Thanks. Good morning, everybody. I hope you can give more granular on the student experience and exactly what the sticking point is. You reference you have a lot of data, but at what point in the process were they prone to dropout or what did they experience that caused them to dropout?
Greg Cappelli, Chief Executive Officer, Apollo Education Group, Inc.
Yeah, working adults who are working during the day, coming home and have busy evenings with families and kids in many cases and get online to study in the evenings, well, into the evening hours need to have a seamless experience. If you’re not, for some reason or another, able to access the content, the course work, the syllabus, for any reason, it gets to be frustrating. That’s what some experienced and that’s why we’ve had some issues and that’s what’s being addressed and being fixed.
Jerry Herman, Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Inc.
Okay. Great. With regard to your second half guidance, the operating income guidance suggests that the second half of the year will be flat to up. Brian, you reference some of the components of that, three in particular, the timing of the recovery, UOP acquisitions, and the growth in the professional area. Can you talk to each of those and your confidence level and each of those turning more favorably in the second half of the year?
Brian Swartz, SVP and Chief Financial Officer, Apollo Education Group, Inc.
Yeah. The acquisitions are performing very well. As we’ve said, the two acquisitions from fiscal ‘14 are performing very, very well. Professional development is relatively small today, but we’re excited about it, they’re gaining some great traction. The team doing a terrific job. University of Phoenix, obviously our largest component there, as Greg mentioned, many of the fixes have been put in place with respect to the classroom. We are just now in the last week or two embarking on calling many of the students who were previously impacted to see if they’re interested in returning to school. We need to see how that plays out.
