Grand Canyon Education, Inc. (NASDAQ:LOPE) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

When you have a person that’s going all the way through a baccalaureate program and its accumulated a lot of debt the thought of more debt to finish an ABSN program is a debilitating thought for a lot of young people. The fact that we’re now taking students with 29 or 30 credits, they’ve attended community colleges they don’t have debt. And now, we’ve made it an efficient way for them to earn those science credits and that learning is necessary in those courses in order to be successful in the ABSN program. That’s just changed everything. And what’s happening is those partner institutions are now sending their prospective students to GCU’s prerequisite program, which is the most efficient way best way to earn those credits. And so, those are the two things that have really caused the reacceleration of the hybrid programs and the future is really, really bright at this point.

Steven Pawlak: I guess relatedly, you had mentioned that mature sites kind of sort of remained below I guess our targeted level. Now that they’re accepting advancing students is it just that there needs to be time for them to return to sort of their full enrollment? Or is there other actions that need to be taken?

Brian Mueller: No, it’s just time. It’s time because a lot of the students when the economy was different when unemployment was higher and there were baccalaureate prepared people that were interested in recareering into nursing. They had completed baccalaureate degrees. And so they needed less of a science in GenEd courses. Moving away from that target, because the target just shrunk and moving to these other students is a very, very positive thing but it takes time for those students to earn the credits necessary to get eligible. And so that’s why that waterfall is so important. We can watch as the students in those prerequisite courses grow. We know each one where each one is going to complete their prerequisites and be eligible.

And so it’s just a matter of time. We have a lot of confidence that we’ve got the right strategy now and the right methodology but it does take time for those younger students to earn the credits and do the learning necessary to get them ready for the ABSN program. So it is just time.

Steven Pawlak: Thank you very much.

Dan Bachus: We have reached the end of our first 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.

Operator: All right. Thank you for your participation in today’s conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.