Wallace Boston
Analyst · Piper Jaffray. Your question please
Thank you, Chris good evening, everyone. I will begin our call today by discussing our recent operating results and reviewing the progress we've made with respect to our strategic goals. Rick Sunderland, our CFO will then report on our third quarter financial results and provide perspective on the company's Outlook for the fourth quarter of 2016. In the third quarter of 2016 net course registrations at APUS declined 10% compared to the prior year period. Although net course registrations by new students declined 23% year-over-year, net course registrations by returning students decreased 8% compared to the prior year period. We believe that the difference in the rate of decline of registrations by new students and that of returning students relates at least in part to improvements in persistence and our quality mix of students. For the three months ended August 31, 2016 and that's the period where we have the most recently available information, the first course pass and completion rates of undergraduate students using federal aid at APUS increased approximately 17% year-over-year with the month of August reaching the highest such rate since August 2010. Furthermore approximately 62% of new civilian students who started in January through August 2016 have started a second session compared to 55% for the same time period last year. We believe the continued improvement and persistence is a possible indicator that our efforts to attract and retain students with greater college readiness are working. The overall decline in net course registrations by new students at APUS was primarily driven by 34% year-over-year decrease in net course registrations by new students using Federal Student Aid or FSA and a 20% year-over-year decrease in net course registrations by new students using military tuition assistance or TA. We believe the decline in new students using FSA was primarily a result of our efforts to improve our quality mix of students through our admissions processes, adjustments to our marketing efforts and increasing competition for online students. We believe the decline in new students using TA is primarily the result of changes in how the TA program is being administered by the Department of Defense as well as other possible factors. Additional changes to TA program administration through productions, deployments and access to military bases could adversely impact net course registrations in the future. Net course registrations by new students using veterans benefits decreased 1% year-over-year and net course registrations by new students using cash and other sources decreased 10% compared to the prior year period. We believe that the change to the multiple disbursement method of disbursing federal student aid to first time APUS undergraduate students in various efforts aimed at improving our quality mix of students have helped to reduce bad debt expense. Bad debt expense decreased to 2.2% of revenue in the third quarter of 2016 compared to 3.4% of revenue in the same period of 2015 and compared to the high of 5.7% of revenue recorded back in the second quarter of 2014. In the third quarter of 2016, total enrollment at Hondros College of Nursing declined approximately 11% year-over-year and new student enrollment declined approximately 20% compared to the prior year period. We believe these declines were the result of various factors including the uncertain status of Hondros as a creditor ACICS and its effect on enrollment, our efforts to enhance the quality and efficiency of the curriculum and changes in the institution's leadership. Although Hondros may continue to be challenged by regulatory change and other headwinds in the future, we are pleased that efforts to stabilize enrollment and further advance our original plan are beginning to yield results. For example Hondros is enrolled for the fall term or for the three months ending December 31, 2016, its largest cohort of new student since fall of 2014. This represents approximately a 1% year-over-year increase in new student enrollment and the first year-over-year increase since the second quarter of 2015. Hondros has applied for and is pursuing initial accreditation by the Accrediting Bureau of Higher Education Schools, ABHES, a national accreditor for allied health schools. This is particularly important development given the rest of Hondros's current accreditor ACICS may eventually seize to be a recognized accreditor enabling title for eligibility. Hondros has experienced sequential improvements in its NCLEX license share exam pass rates. Although we anticipate that one of their programs may not meet OBN standards, Hondros has already implemented curriculum changes that it believes will result in additional increases and NCLEX license share exam pass rates over time. Lastly Hondros has announced that it is set to begin classes and practical nursing PN programs at his new Toledo campus starting in January of 2017. As previously noted, our long-term plan for APUS includes several important initiatives aimed at achieving two critical near-term goals. One, to increase student persistence and two, to stabilize student enrollment. We're pleased with the current trajectory of persistence rates at APUS. We will continue with our efforts to stabilize enrollment, which is particularly challenging given the difficult higher education landscape and relatively low marketing budget compared to the marketing expenditures of our higher priced peers. Over the next few months we plan to continue to focus on enrollment challenges by working to strengthen our brand, further improving enrollment processes, adding new programs and expanding our strategic relationships, in addition to our recent investment in new enrollment management leadership. In 2015 APUS provided more than $8.6 million in grants and scholarships to our nonemployee students. These included tuition grants, equity grants, grants for strategic partners and other scholarships. We believe that there are additional opportunities for APUS to promote the availability of existing grants and scholarships to attract new students, particularly among military affiliated public safety and corporate communities. We've continued to observe variances between lead flow, applications and student starts at APUS. As a result we intend to expand our focus on analysis, predictive modeling and applied innovations to improve the dynamics of our enrollment lifecycle. To help lead the advancement of our enrollment efforts, we've recently hired Robert Gay as our new Chief Operations Officer. Bob Gay is an industry leader in enrollment management who most recently served as Senior Vice President of McGuire Associates, a higher education consulting firm focused on enrollment management. Among his many prior positions, Mr. Gay served as Vice President of Enrollment Management at the New School, Party and Learning Group and University of Maryland University College. APUS also recently announced the appointment of Dr. Bernard C. Smith as Provost to succeed former provost and current APUS President, Dr. Karan Powell. Dr. Smith was formally Vice Provost of distributed learning and Associate Professor of the Benerd School of Education for the University of the Pacific. In his new role at APUS, he will be responsible for ongoing initiatives focused on learning outcomes assessment, program development and faculty development as well as innovation and advancement of our curriculum. Although APUS offers more than 200 degree and certificate programs, we remain focused on additional opportunities for expansion and professions where demand is growing and where corporations struggle to find talent. For example APUS recently launched seven new programs a BS and MS in Business Analytics, a Certificate AA and BA in Technical Management, a Graduate Certificate in Accounting and the CPA exam preparation certificate. As a result of our unique affordability, we believe APUS is well-positioned to help employers advance the capabilities of their workforce and lower the cost of human capital. In addition to helping jobseekers close significant skills gaps and find employment and/or advancement. APUS has submitted new competency-based programs to the Higher Learning Commission, HLC for approval. Once approved by the HLC, we plan to launch the programs under initiative we call momentum, competency-based faculty guided degree programs that empower students to events more rapidly by demonstrating mastery of program competencies, through more engaging, flexible and cost-effective approach. Initially our focus will be on undergraduate degrees in retail management, criminal justice, emergency and disaster management, forensic management, information technology and information system security. Given APU strong reputation among public safety communities, we’ve launched the APUS Center for Applied Learning, CAL, a B2B program to provide customized training aligned with the workforce demands of public safety professionals and their employers. In fact CAL just announced the completion of its first customized professional development program entitled Active Shooter for Non-First Responders. This program represents a precedent-setting collaboration between CAL and Command Excellence, an organization that specializes in critical incident preparation and survival training for corporate manufacturing retail and educational institutions. CAL has already qualified interest among a growing pipeline of domestic and international corporations in anticipation of the program's release. We believe new professional learning solutions like this will allow us to deepen long-standing ties with their strategic partners and enable us to develop new relationships with corporations and professional associations. In the third quarter of 2016 APUS developed several new strategic relationships including with Holland America Group, the U.S. Postal Service and National Public Employees Alliance, the only national affinity group dedicated to the public service sector. In summary I am encouraged by the notable progress we've made with respect to improving student persistence and reducing bad debt expense at APUS while simultaneously improving the student experience, diversifying our program offerings and maintaining our affordability. Our progress is important to our long-term success especially in the face of regulatory headwinds. According to the Department of Education's draft that earnings rates, none at APUS or HCON's degree programs were identified as failing or in the warning zone for gainful employment regulations. Furthermore, I'm pleased by the sequential improvement in NCLEX licensure pass rates and the increase in new student enrolment for the fall term at Hondros College of Nursing. Perhaps this is early indication that the efforts of our new management team at Hondros have begun to yield positive results. Stabilizing enrollment at APUS and returning to growth is of critical importance to our management team. We are later focused on further strengthening our brand, programs and enrollment processes. I'm pleased we have hired a tremendously skilled enrollment management executive and new provost to assist us in this effort. We believe that our new degree programs coupled with the growing emphasis on workforce development, competency-based learning and expansion of our strategic relationships will also support efforts to strengthen our enrollment in the future. At this time I will turn the call over to our CFO, Rick Sunderland. Rick?