Phoenix Education Partners Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

  • Neutral Sentiment: Phoenix Education Partners reported Q3 revenue of $271.8 million, essentially flat year over year, with average degreed enrollment up 0.6% to about 85,300 students. Retention remained a key strength and helped offset softer near-term enrollment trends.
  • Negative Sentiment: The company reduced full-year revenue guidance to $1.02 billion-$1.025 billion, citing the transitional impact of changing digital search and discovery behavior as prospective students rely more on AI-powered search. Management said the shift is not due to weaker underlying demand, but it is creating near-term friction.
  • Positive Sentiment: Adjusted EBITDA guidance was raised and tightened to $246 million-$250 million, reflecting disciplined cost management and benefits from technology and AI-enabled initiatives. Q3 adjusted EBITDA margin was 28.7%, supported in part by lower bad debt from stronger retention.
  • Positive Sentiment: The company highlighted growing momentum in employer-supported and B2B enrollment, which rose to about 36% of total enrollment from 33% a year ago. Management said this channel tends to retain and complete at higher rates, and it expects continued growth through stronger employer relationships.
  • Positive Sentiment: Phoenix announced a major OpenAI collaboration to accelerate AI-powered learning, research, and student access to ChatGPT. The company also said AI skill-building modules are now in every course and that AI is being used to improve both the learner experience and operational efficiency.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Phoenix Education Partners Q3 2026
00:00 / 00:00

There are 11 speakers on the call.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon, and welcome to Phoenix Education Partners' third quarter fiscal 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following prepared remarks, we will open the call for questions. I would now like to turn the call over to Beth Coronelli, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thank you. Welcome to the Phoenix Education Partners third quarter fiscal 2026 earnings conference call. Speaking on today's call are Chris Lynne, our Chief Executive Officer, and Blair Westblom, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that certain statements and projections of future results made in this presentation constitute forward-looking statements that are based on current market, competitive, and regulatory expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to vary materially. Listeners should not place undue reliance on such statements. We undertake no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements after this presentation. The risks related to these forward-looking statements are described in our filings with the SEC, including our most recent Form 10-K, Form 10-Q, and other public filings. We will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures.

Speaker 1

You should consider our non-GAAP results as supplements to, and not in lieu of, our GAAP results. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in our earnings release and SEC filings. Unless otherwise noted, comments on the call will focus on comparisons to the prior year period. We also direct you to the supplemental earnings slides provided on the Phoenix Education Partners website. I'll now turn the call over to Chris.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Beth, and good afternoon, everyone. We appreciate you joining us today as we discuss our third quarter fiscal 2026 results and the continued execution of our long-term strategy. Guided by our mission, we remain focused on helping students achieve meaningful educational and career outcomes through flexible and affordable programs designed for working adults. The pace of change continues to accelerate as artificial intelligence reshapes how people work and the skills employers need. This environment aligns directly with our longstanding focus on working adult learners. For nearly five decades, University of Phoenix has helped students adapt, grow, and succeed through periods of economic and technological transformation. Today, we are building on that legacy by continuing to enhance the learning experience, incorporating employer-informed curriculum, and preparing learners with in-demand skills, creating greater opportunities for career mobility.

Speaker 2

As we celebrate our 50th anniversary this year, we are reminded that our ability to evolve alongside the needs of learners and employers has been one of our defining strengths. That same commitment to innovation and adaptability continues to guide our strategy today. Turning to our results, the third quarter reflected continued progress across our strategic priorities. Revenue and enrollment were generally consistent with prior year, supported by continued strength in retention and healthy growth in employer-supported enrollment. Retention remains one of the strongest indicators of value students place on the University of Phoenix experience. The sustained improvement we've achieved reflects multiyear investments across the learner journey, including technology-enabled support, personalized engagement, flexible learning pathways, and skills-aligned curriculum. Together, these efforts continue to support student retention and the long-term durability of our enrollment base.

Speaker 2

During the quarter, we accelerated the successful launch of our Built for Real Life campaign, an evidence-based omni-channel campaign that highlights our differentiation through the attributes working adults value most: exceptional flexibility, affordable tuition, and practical career-relevant education, all supported by consistently high levels of student and alumni satisfaction. At University of Phoenix, our AI strategy is centered on three priorities: elevating the learner experience, equipping students with the AI skills employers increasingly value, and enhancing how we operate across the university. During the quarter, we made exciting progress expanding AI-enabled learning and AI skill development for students, which I'll discuss in more detail later in my remarks. We also continued to scale AI to drive operational efficiency across the university, including the launch of our One Team Assistant, which provides AI-generated summaries, including status and next best actions to help our advisors best support our students.

Speaker 2

Our students continue to benefit from skills-aligned curriculum. To date, students have earned more than 1.1 million digital skills badges, providing another way to demonstrate verified workforce relevant skills to current and prospective employers. We continue to see growing demand for learners and employers for education aligned with evolving workforce and technology needs. Approximately 36% of our third quarter enrollment came through employer-supported relationships, up from approximately 33% a year ago, reflecting the growing alignment between our educational offerings and employer needs. This alignment is reflected in feedback from employers. I am happy to report that results from a recent employer research survey conducted by The Harris Poll indicated that 98% of employers surveyed reported overall satisfaction with University of Phoenix graduates. During the quarter, we further expanded our work with employers to support upskilling, career mobility, and talent development.

Speaker 2

University of Phoenix was recently recognized by Wabash, a New York Stock Exchange-listed provider of end-to-end supply chain solutions, as a 2025 platinum supplier for its collaboration in supporting workforce development and operational priorities. We believe this recognition reflects the value of helping employers align learning, skills development, and business needs, while helping organizations build the workforce capabilities they need to succeed. Looking ahead, we will continue expanding our academic portfolio to meet evolving workforce needs with new offerings planned across several high-demand disciplines and more flexible pathways designed to make degree completion faster and more affordable. This includes the approval and planned fall launch of one of our first three-year bachelor's degree paths in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences and Criminal Justice Administration. In today's workforce, preparing learners for an AI-enabled workplace is central to helping them develop practical career-relevant skills they can apply throughout their careers.

Speaker 2

Recent findings from the University of Phoenix Career Institute Career Optimism Index underscore the importance of continuous learning and AI skill development. The study found that about half of workers say AI increases their confidence in pursuing new career opportunities, while more than half report greater confidence in developing new skills and adapting to evolving workplace technologies. Our goal isn't simply to teach students how to use AI tools. It's to prepare working adults to succeed as AI continues to transform the workplace. We are integrating generative AI throughout our curriculum to help students develop practical AI skills they can apply on the job. We're continuously expanding AI-powered learning experiences and now offer AI skill-building modules in every course.

Speaker 2

We are currently enhancing teaching and learning through support tools and advanced AI training for faculty, expansion of our Socratic dialogue tool that simulates real-world professional scenarios, and have an AI agent that provides 24/7 support for writing and math. Earlier today, we announced a collaboration with OpenAI, an exciting opportunity to accelerate this work. Working with OpenAI, we plan to advance AI-powered learning, explore collaborative research, and expand access to AI technologies that help working adult learners develop the skills they need for an increasingly AI-enabled workplace. As part of this relationship, we plan to provide eligible students with access to ChatGPT, giving them a hands-on experience with AI as they continue developing those skills throughout their education.

Speaker 2

As search and discovery continue to rapidly evolve, we remain focused on how prospective learners explore, evaluate, and ultimately choose University of Phoenix as they look for ways to advance their education and careers. We believe our strong brand, leading position across social media among our peer set, career-relevant content, media expertise, and broad digital presence provide a solid foundation in this changing environment. This foundation has provided strong support for adjustments to our digital acquisition strategies that meet the evolving needs of prospective learners who increasingly use AI in their search process. The recent launch of the Built for Real Life campaign has been one of our more successful campaigns and is an important evolution in how we communicate what differentiates University of Phoenix.

Speaker 2

It has been effective at maintaining strong demand for our brand and is designed to provide authoritative, evidence-based content around the most important decision factors in a manner that influences AI-powered search. We will continue to adapt our approach to meet learners wherever they are making decisions about their education. I also want to briefly touch on the Department of Education's recent fraud prevention initiatives. As I've discussed on previous calls, we support the Department's efforts to strengthen fraud prevention and protect the integrity of the federal student aid system. Importantly, the Department's enhanced controls and the recent initial data we've reviewed from the Department has reinforced our confidence in the effectiveness of the fraud detection and identity verification processes we already had in place. Before I close, I'd like to welcome Robert Brackenbury to the Phoenix Education Partners Board of Directors.

Speaker 2

Robert brings extensive leadership and governance experience, most recently serving as Deputy Chief Investment Officer for the State of Michigan Retirement Systems, where he helped oversee more than $170 billion in pension and trust assets for a fund with a long-term track record of outperformance amongst large public pension funds. Combined with a decade of higher education leadership experience, Robert brings valuable perspective, and we look forward to his contributions to our board. As we look to the future, an important part of our growth strategy and capital allocation approach is evaluating opportunities that complement our core business, enhance our ability to serve learners and employers, and strengthen our long-term value proposition. Playing a key role in leading these efforts, I'd also like to welcome Michael Cochran as our Senior Vice President in Corporate Development.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Chris. Michael brings extensive transaction and strategic advisory experience, most recently as an Executive Director at Morgan Stanley, where he served as a key leader supporting the company in its return to the public markets. As we enter the final quarter of 2026, we remain focused on executing against our strategic priorities: supporting student success, strengthening employer relationships, and helping learners build the skills they need to succeed in a rapidly evolving workforce. The progress we continue to see in student outcomes reinforces our confidence in our strategy. Supported by a strong financial foundation, disciplined execution, and continued investment in our students, we remain confident in our long-term trajectory and our ability to create value for learners, employers, and shareholders. With that, I'll turn the call over to Blair.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Chris. I'll begin with a review of our third quarter financial results, followed by updates on our balance sheet, capital allocation, and fiscal 2026 outlook. For the third quarter, net revenue was $271.8 million, compared to $271.7 million in the prior year period. Average total degreed enrollment increased 0.6% for the third quarter to approximately 85,300 students, compared to 84,800 in the prior year, with continued strength and retention. Net income attributable to Phoenix Education Partners was $39.2 million, or $1.01 per diluted share, compared to $53.8 million, or $1.42 per diluted share in the prior year. The decrease was primarily driven by higher share-based compensation expense associated with our IPO, which increased $7.8 million compared to the prior year period, an increase in advertising expense, and higher strategic alternatives, restructuring, and other expense.

Speaker 3

Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $78.1 million, compared to $83.4 million in the prior year, a decrease of 6.4%. Adjusted diluted earnings per share was $1.43 in the third quarter, compared to $1.57 in the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA margin for the third quarter was 28.7%, compared to 30.7% in the prior period, primarily driven by higher advertising expense, which increased $6.6 million in the third quarter to support the accelerated launch of the Built for Real Life campaign. This was partially offset by lower bad debt expense due to higher retention. For the first nine months of fiscal 2026, net revenue was $756.3 million, an increase of 0.9% compared to $749.8 million in the prior year. Average total degreed enrollment increased 2.2% for the first nine months to approximately 84,500 students, compared to 82,700, reflecting continued strength in retention.

Speaker 3

Net income attributable to Phoenix Education Partners was $65.4 million, or $1.69 per diluted share, compared to $116.4 million or $3.08 per diluted share in the prior period, with the year-over-year decrease primarily due to share-based compensation expense associated with our IPO. For the first nine months, adjusted EBITDA increased 1.2% to $188.1 million, compared to $185.8 million in the prior year, and adjusted diluted earnings per share was $3.40 compared to $3.49 in the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA margin for the first nine months was 24.9%, compared to 24.8% in the prior year period. These results reflect the increase in net revenue as well as lower bad debt expense, primarily due to higher retention. Our results continue to benefit from strong retention trends and disciplined cost management, which we believe support long-term margin expansion, scalability, and strong cash generation.

Speaker 3

We continue to maintain a strong balance sheet with substantial liquidity and no outstanding debt. As of May 31st, 2026, our cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities were $269.4 million, compared to $194.8 million as of August 31st, 2025. The increase was principally due to $116.7 million of cash generated from operating activities, which was partially offset by $17.4 million of cash paid for dividends and dividend equivalents, $15 million of capital expenditures, as well as net cash paid to settle share-based awards and common stock repurchases. Our capital allocation priorities remain focused on investing in student outcomes, technology-enabled capabilities, and strategic growth opportunities while maintaining financial flexibility and returning capital to shareholders. In April, our board of directors approved and we announced a $50 million stock repurchase program.

Speaker 3

In the third quarter, we repurchased approximately 135,000 of our common shares for an aggregate purchase price of $4 million at an average of $29.29 per share. As of quarter end, we had approximately $46 million remaining available for repurchases. Today, we announced another quarterly dividend of $0.21 per share payable on August 14th. We expect to continue to pay quarterly dividends in subsequent quarters of $0.21 per share, which equates to $0.84 per share annually, subject to board approval. We also continue evaluating select M&A opportunities that complement our workforce-aligned capabilities, learner experience, and employer ecosystem while maintaining financial discipline. Turning to our fiscal 2026 outlook, based on our expectations for the remainder of the year, we anticipate net revenue will be in the $1.02 billion-$1.025 billion range.

Speaker 3

While the revised outlook primarily reflects the transitional impact of our digital enrollment strategies as we adapt to an evolving search and discovery environment, we remain confident in the long-term demand for University of Phoenix and our ability to successfully execute our strategy. We are also raising and tightening our fiscal 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance and now expect adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $246 million-$250 million. This updated outlook reflects disciplined cost management and the benefits of our strategic and operational initiatives, including technology and AI-enabled capabilities that continue to support efficiency

Speaker 3

scalability, and student outcomes. We continue to operate from a position of financial strength, supported by healthy cash flow generation, a debt-free balance sheet, and disciplined capital allocation. These attributes provide the flexibility to continue investing in our strategic priorities while supporting long-term value creation. I'll now ask the operator to begin the question and answer session.

Operator

Thank you. If you have dialed in and would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press star one again. If you're called upon to ask your question and are listening via speakerphone on your device, please pick up your handset and ensure that your phone is not on mute when asking your question. Again, it is star one to join the queue. Our first question comes from the line of Greg Parrish with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Speaker 4

Hey, guys. Good evening. Thanks for taking my question. Or maybe afternoon, there for you. Maybe just to help level set here, especially on enrollment growth, what's changed versus the initial expectations that you've had? What's going on in the market that maybe was different than nine months ago? I know you talked about search changes, talked about the last quarter. I think that's the only thing you mentioned again today. Is this all search changes or maybe anything else to call out? What's structural versus what's temporary? Maybe just help us there. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Greg. I'll take that question. Really, first and foremost, I think it's important to point out that we're not seeing weaker demand for our programs. In fact, demand for University of Phoenix's brand remains strong. One of the measures we followed for years is branded search on Google. We can see that we continue to be one of the top two brands across the competitive set. We are top in terms of growth year-over-year. The interest is there. As you alluded, what we are seeing is a change in how prospective students evaluate their options. We're seeing longer, more iterative evaluation processes as AI-powered search becomes more a part of the evaluation journey. That's really the driver of the near-term impact. What I'll say about it is we've been preparing for this shift for a long time. This is a transition.

Speaker 2

For example, we talked about our Built for Real Life campaign that we accelerated into Q3. That campaign is designed to make our differentiators highly visible. There's many claims across the most important attributes that adult learners care about, from exceptional flexibility, affordability, transparency, career-relevant education, and really consistently high student and alumni satisfaction. That is one of the things we're doing to make sure that those evidence-based differentiators are put out on the digital platforms in a way that the AI-powered search picks it up and presents us favorably based on those differentiators with our competitors. We've been doing a lot alongside those types of issues. That has created near-term impact. Now, long-term, strategically, we believe this change in the search environment is going to be a favorable thing for institutions that have built credible evidence around their differentiation.

Speaker 2

That's where we see ourselves well-positioned in the market. We see this as a transition, and it's a shift that we've been working through, which is why we modestly reduced our revenue outlook for the year. Now, in terms of other factors, it's probably worth mentioning that we did have a very temporary level of friction on enrollment related to, I mentioned in my remarks, the unusual enrollment activity. That's all really good news for us. We've talked about the control structures we put in place. Those continue to be validated. One thing that did happen this prior quarter that I've mentioned in previous calls that we were anticipating is the Department of Education has rolled out their system of new detection and verification controls as part of the FAFSA process.

Speaker 2

In that process, they have risk identifiers now that they share with institutions that are signals of different levels of risk around potential unusual enrollment activity or what they call potential identity fraud or ghost students. The good news is anything that they flagged in their process, and they flagged all of, or they looked at all of the 2026 and 2027 applications, at which, because we're a non-term, continuously enrolling institution, we actually had over 70,000 applications that had been filled out by either current students or prospective students in the enrollment process. Not all of those students, by any means, were flagged, but the ones that were flagged were very consistent with our internal controls. That was a validator that we've got robust controls, and as does the department, which is a good thing.

Speaker 2

That did create some friction, because with the new regulations, when students are flagged, institutions are required to take them through a process. Because they did a look back, we had sort of a one-time process at which we had to work through these students. That's behind us, and I wouldn't say it was anything meaningful. I didn't mention in my remarks as a result. Given you asked the question if there was anything else related to what we communicated, that was another factor

Speaker 4

Yep. Okay, fantastic. Maybe just taking all that forward, just a refresh on how you think about, in your team, the long-term growth rate of this business. How do you see that evolving? As we go into 2027, do you expect to be within your long-term framework in 2027?

Speaker 2

Yeah. We're not giving the outlook for FY 2027 on this call. We will be sharing that on our next earnings call. In terms of the long-term outlook, we still feel that our previous communications on the long-term outlook for the business are consistent with today. We are in the middle of a shift in how search is conducted. It's worth saying that we've set a very strong foundation. Most importantly, our brand demand is high. That's really a paramount matter. It's really about setting up our differentiators in a way that search engines that are being utilized by prospective students can pick up our differentiators. Like I said earlier, we think over the long term, this is actually going to be a strength for universities that have clear differentiators that they've earned in the marketplace.

Speaker 2

We see satisfaction across all the key attributes that adult learners care about, most importantly, the relevancy of our curriculum. We think that that's going to play out in a positive way over the longer term. We feel good about where we're at. The other thing worth mentioning in terms of the near-term impact is we have other channels that continue to perform very well that have no impact on AI search. We're seeing healthy growth in our B2B channel. We continue to expect that to grow, because we've not only been very effective with our account management processes across our 2,500-plus employers, we continue to build more strategic relationships with employers, like the example I shared with Wabash in my remarks. That will continue to drive success.

Speaker 2

We also see very healthy demand continue to come to the university. We've continuously improved our ability to meet that demand effectively with personalization, leveraging AI and technology throughout the enrollment process, where we're seeing continued improvements in conversion of that demand into what become new students for the university. All of those things give us confidence in our long-term expectations.

Speaker 4

Great. Thank you for that. If I may just slip in one quick modeling question, then I'll pass it off. Does stock-based comp, coming out of the IPO, is a little elevated. This quarter was 3%. Maybe just help us, what's the right level of stock-based comp as a % of revenue to think about just in the go-forward model?

Speaker 3

Hey, Greg, it's Blair Westblom. Thanks so much for the question. Our Q3 2026 share-based comp expense was $8.5 million. As mentioned on previous calls, a little less than half of SBC was associated with the modification of pre-IPO stock options, not new stock. The majority of the remaining expense was associated with shares granted at IPO or post-IPO. When you take a look at year-to-date expense of $47.6 million of SBC, that includes a number of different components. Approximately $31 million is related to the modification of stock options, of which $4 million was incurred in Q3. You have approximately $3 million unrestricted share grants to a very limited number of employees and less than $1 million from pre-IPO awards.

Speaker 3

The only ongoing component of that is approximately $13 million from newly granted awards at IPO or post-IPO that generally vest over three years. As always, I direct you to our fiscal 2025 Form 10-K and our Q3 2026 Form 10-Q. You can see a significant portion of non-cash SBC was due, as I mentioned, to the modification of pre-IPO options.

Speaker 4

Okay, great. That's helpful. Thank you.

Speaker 3

Okay.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Jasper Bibb with Truist Securities. Your line is open.

Speaker 5

Hey, good afternoon, everyone. Just wanted to get a little bit more color on the enrollment growth rate. I think in the prepared remarks, you talked about strength in retention kind of supporting the 1% enrollment growth. I know you don't disclose this, but could you provide a little bit of color on what you're seeing in new starts so far this year and in the past quarter?

Speaker 2

Yeah. Well, we don't disclose new starts, but one thing that I'll point out, Jasper, that we've mentioned on past calls is, from a revenue growth perspective, we did have a higher propensity of students that didn't retain beyond the earlier courses last year. I kind of walked through the background on that and shared that we were not experiencing that coming into this year, and that has been consistent. The impact of that from a year-over-year revenue growth rate was anticipated to be higher in Q2 and Q3. That masks a little bit of the actual growth from a revenue perspective. In terms of new student growth, we feel good about the demand we're seeing. We do have this nearer-term impact as we have been navigating some of these early changes in search. As I said earlier, we feel good about the demand we're seeing.

Speaker 2

We also feel good about the response that we've had. One thing that's worth mentioning is we planned for a lot of the response for a long time right now, knowing that search is changing. We're seeing the impact of the foundational changes we put in place to make sure that we're getting picked up properly with our differentiation in AI-powered search. We manage that across thousands of prompts, and we can see the traction as we shift into this new environment. We see strong demand. We're seeing good progress there. I would just caution you to look at the growth rate overall for revenue this quarter as being a little bit masked by that year-over-year issue I mentioned earlier.

Speaker 5

Makes sense. Then I had an expense question. I think the advertising expense grew about 16% year-over-year in the quarter. I know that can bounce around a little, but can you just talk about maybe the drivers of the increase in advertising this quarter? Was that related to the AI shift you talked about, and you expect, I guess, the spending on advertising to moderate at all in the fiscal fourth quarter?

Speaker 3

Yeah, certainly, Jasper. We incurred $6.6 million higher advertising expense in Q3 versus the same period prior year. That's as we adapt to changes in how prospective learners discover, evaluate, and ultimately choose higher education. We did ultimately make the decision to accelerate the Built for Real Life campaign, which is designed to differentiate University of Phoenix for working adults while strengthening the top-of-funnel awareness and consideration. We believe this and other marketing initiatives will support long-term growth and enrollment. That coupled with anticipated expansion of our direct channels, including employer-affiliated enrollment, we believe these investments will enhance our acquisition efficiency over time.

Speaker 2

One thing, Jasper, that's probably worth mentioning is the acceleration of that Built for Real Life campaign. That was actually pretty phenomenal work across our marketing team. The reason we did that was planned to be launched later in the year, closer to fall. Because it was built on broad evidence-supported claims, we decided we should launch it sooner given the impact of AI-powered search, because not only it's been very effective at driving strength in our brand demand, it's also built and designed to help optimize for AI-powered search. We did spend higher, part of that was accelerating that decision earlier in the year.

Speaker 5

Got it. That makes sense. Thank you for taking the question.

Speaker 2

You're welcome.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Alex Paris with Barrington Research. Your line is open.

Speaker 6

Hi, thank you, and thanks for taking my questions. First question is, back at the time of the IPO, and I'm not sure if you've published it since, you sort of broke down enrollment by fields of study. At the time, 63% was business and IT. I look at it as three buckets. 31% healthcare and related, that would include social and behavioral, as well as healthcare professions and nursing, and then 4% education. I'm wondering, year to date or in the third quarter, or however you would like to answer the question, where has been the area of strength and areas of less strength?

Speaker 2

Yeah, thanks for the question. We have a diversified portfolio of programs that are aligned to in-demand fields. There's different levers that seem to contribute more to growth at different periods of time. I don't have, and maybe Blair does have a recent breakdown, but it's pretty similar to what you've described. However, we have seen stronger growth in healthcare. The macro trends there have been strong. I think the closest barometer to what's going on in the marketplace is really looking at where we're seeing growth with our employers. Healthcare is just under a third of our B2B relationships. Now that's healthcare organizations. We're seeing strong growth in our healthcare-related programming, but we're also seeing growth in other non-healthcare-related programming as a result of that part of the sector growing.

Speaker 2

That's another element that we see is when you're in growing verticals, and we have several, healthcare being one of them, that are growing healthily. You see growth of really all of our programs in those verticals. I would say, healthcare, the areas that you mentioned, have been growing at a higher rate than other programs. The skills-aligned curriculum, we're seeing growth across different parts of our portfolio as well across the B2B network. We think that's reflective of both the demand we're seeing on B2C or demand that we expect to see in certain parts of B2C as the differentiators that employers are responding to become clearer to the broader consumer base.

Speaker 6

Great. That's helpful. I appreciate that. Just a question and comment on guidance. Given your updated guidance, revenue slightly below your prior guidance and adjusted EBITDA narrowed and slightly above your prior guidance. I think the year is going to come in where you said it was last quarter. You had said if you look at the midpoint of the new guidance, it's at the low end of the prior guidance, and if you look at the midpoint of the updated guidance, it's at the high end of prior guidance. That actually suggests 3.4% revenue growth in the fourth quarter, 5.8% adjusted EBITDA growth in the fourth quarter at the midpoint. It looks like we're at that long-term growth algorithm. Mid-single digit top line, maybe a little bit below, and then mid-single digit plus earnings.

Speaker 6

Is there any reason to think that that long-term algorithm wouldn't hold for fiscal 2027?

Speaker 2

That's a very good breakdown of the facts, we're not providing an outlook for fiscal 2027 now. For now, I'll just hold to my comments earlier that we're comfortable with the long-term expectations that we've indicated previously. We're going to close out the year here and be ready to share more about fiscal 2027 in the next earnings call.

Speaker 6

Great. Then the last question, just to sneak in here, is regulatory. We've talked about regulatory on the prior several calls with the one big beautiful bill, negotiated rulemaking, and then some of those rules like grad loans and earnings accountability going into effect July 1st. There were some positives there, kind of a delayed effectiveness on earnings accountability. More recently, there's been some word out of the Department of Education that they're not done, that they're going to do some more negotiated rulemaking this fall, one of which is taking a look at the 90/10 rule, which applies only to for-profits. With your number at about 88%, I know that's comfortably below the limit. What are your thoughts or what are you hearing about 90/10 changes coming?

Speaker 2

Yeah. I think I'm hearing similar things that you are. I'd hate to speculate on 90/10. I do know that there is some acknowledgment that the ratio is worth revisiting. I think they're pretty common acknowledgment that we've heard in that any kind of accountability metrics should really be applied against all of higher ed. 90/10 is I hate to be critical of a metric, but it doesn't necessarily align with student success in the way that we would prefer. There is some hopeful discussion going on that's consistent with what you've been hearing.

Speaker 6

Great. I appreciate the extra color. Thank you very much. I'll yield to the next caller.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Jeff Silber with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Speaker 7

Thanks so much. I wanted to circle back to the discussion at the beginning about how students are changing the way that they look for institutions. It's a two-part question. One, can you give us a rough estimate of what percentage of leads are now coming from LLMs and how that's changed over the past year? Two, you mentioned a few times that you need to position yourself so the LLMs pick up your differentiators. Can you give us, again, some examples about how you are doing that and how successful you've been there? Thanks.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Jeff. Let me hit the second question first. We're doing a lot of things around making sure that discovery is optimized. Best practices have emerged and continue to emerge across any kind of digital platform or any method at which you put content out into the universe on your website or through digital channels. Social media has become very much a rich source for the AI-powered LLMs. Google has pointed out YouTube as being a more primary source. I know I mentioned that in the last call. Video is becoming a more effective and primary source for the LLMs. We are staying on the, I would consider, leading edge of where the market is going. We work closely with Google.

Speaker 2

We now have this partnership in collaboration that we announced today with OpenAI, to know where is the market going, as well as working with outside experts. We feel like we're well-positioned across all those things and areas. We're number one on social media. We've seen really, as some examples that you asked for, on YouTube and our social media and content generation, we're seeing a lot of progress. We measure this stuff carefully. There's thousands of prompts that are really important to adult learners. We monitor those regularly and correlate them to these activities to know what is working, and that's where we're seeing the traction. LinkedIn is another rich source. LinkedIn is a great source for us. We have a very strong engagement.

Speaker 2

A lot of that engagement is built around clear differentiation, not only the claims that we can make across critical attributes that matter to adult learners, but our alumni and students engage around their experience at the University of Phoenix, and that more and more gets picked up by the LLMs. In fact, we have 750,000 people on LinkedIn that report either graduating or having attended the University of Phoenix. There's many more examples that I can give you, but we've got a pretty broad set of initiatives that are really optimized to increase discovery. Again, over the long term, we think this is going to be a very positive thing because if you have clear differentiation, that's going to be a benefit as AI presents that differentiation more and more clearly to prospective students over time.

Speaker 2

In terms of the percentage of leads, it's difficult to give you a percentage. What we are seeing is we have a tremendous amount of demand that comes to us, and what we do is we look at how that demand engages with us at a very detailed level. Some of the changes, just to give you an example, is we may have demand that historically came through a search channel, and then they came to our website and they may start an application. The change may be that we have demand come directly to our website. We can't point in all cases to the LLM that they came from. Then we see that person come to the website multiple times before they start an application.

Speaker 2

When I say that it's become a more iterative and elongated process, we're seeing that type of behavior with the percentage of the enrollment. It's pretty intensive. We can see the visibility, which is good because we can react to it and make sure that we're providing experiences that help us provide those incoming prospective students with what they need and respond to the changes in how they shop, but I can't necessarily give you a percentage. It's not necessarily a huge percentage that has shifted, but any shift in the process is something that we need to adapt to in the near term, which is what's occurring right now.

Speaker 7

All right. Thanks so much.

Speaker 2

You're welcome.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of George Tong with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Speaker 8

Hi, thanks. Good afternoon. You talked about initiatives to make sure your differentiation is getting picked up by AI-powered search. How long do you think it'll take before AI-powered search produces results that are similar to or better than traditional search?

Speaker 2

George, that's a really hard question to answer. I really would be speculating. What I can say is, I think this has been pretty encouraging sort of early days here, is we can see the impact of the things that we're doing to improve how we show up, meaning the number of citations, how often our brand shows up. So I think that encourages me that this will be a transition that we'll start to be more data-driven in how we discuss timelines and when we'll get there. It's still pretty early, so it's hard to give you a view of when this will get to a world that was similar to how search had been conducted in the past.

Speaker 8

Got it. Okay. That's helpful.

Speaker 2

I think the thing that is probably pretty obvious is one of the benefits of how search occurred before is it was purely on your ability to market claims that you can make. For us, that has always been a strength, that continues to be a strength because we have strong evidence-supported claims, and we've been great at marketing those claims. In the future, I think that still is a huge contributor, but the other contributor is really the AI search is going to show comparisons of institutions based on what they deliver for us to their students or for employers. That's where I think the real opportunity is. It's not generated by your marketing, it's generated by your outcomes. Our outcomes, we think, position us well for how that matures over time. I think that's just worth reinforcing.

Speaker 8

Got it. That makes sense. Then you mentioned the Department of Education rolled out their system of detection and verification controls as part of FAFSA. What's the likelihood that the Department of Education rolls out additional systems of detection that could impact the funnel and onboarding process?

Speaker 2

I think the department is, one, likely to continue to bolster and enhance their control structures, either to make them more efficient or to adapt to an evolving Sort of threat environment. We've been doing that for quite some time now. You have to be adapting. You have to constantly be improving. When I look forward, I actually think anything that they do that creates responsibilities for the institution is likely mitigated by the fact that now the department has frontline defense and control mechanisms that didn't exist prior to rolling these out. Prior to them rolling this out, we were fully dependent on our systems in dealing with the incoming threat actors with our control structure. Now we have a frontline defense, and those same threat actors have to go through the department before they even arrive at our doorstep.

Speaker 2

I think that's likely to reduce any kind of friction, likely meaningfully into the future if I were to speculate.

Speaker 8

Got it. Very helpful. Thank you.

Speaker 2

You're welcome.

Operator

As a reminder, it's star one to ask a question, and our next question comes from the line of Rob Sanderson with Loop Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Speaker 9

Thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. Chris, I wanted to ask about healthy growth in your B2B partnerships that you had mentioned earlier in the call. A couple of questions on this. Is the expansion of your managed accounts having the expected stimulus on enrollment here, and is that going to be a growing focus for the university in the year ahead? Is your B2B enrollment, is it coming up on 40% of total now? It's been a while since we had an update. Is there anything you could point us to on that? Could you also give us a sense of impact to revenue and profit contribution as your enrollment mix continues to shift to this channel? Any color you could provide on that would be helpful. I do have a follow-up.

Speaker 2

Okay. Sure. Yeah. We continue to see healthy growth from the investments we've made in our account management that we've talked about in previous calls. We've gone to 36% of our enrollment now this past quarter versus 33% in the previous year. We expect that growth to continue based on the performance we've seen as we continue to invest in account management and as we continue to lean into more strategic relationships, like I mentioned with the Wabash example earlier. I do think that that will be a continued focus going forward into fiscal 2027, and beyond. In terms of, this is a strong driver of revenue growth. Over time, we've been seeing a slight reduction in revenue per student. However, when you look at the profitability dynamics of our B2B channel, these students tend to retain and complete at higher rates.

Speaker 2

The profitability has been very similar when we have done point-in-time measurements in the past. We think as the channel gets more and more efficient, as we're able to expand through account management, that the profitability dynamics likely over time in the B2B channel are going to likely improve versus the lower revenue that we receive from those based on the discounts that we provide under the tuition assistance programs. We think that the demand dynamics and trends are strong there and will continue into the future.

Speaker 9

Yeah, perfect. Thanks, Chris. A follow-up, I wanted to ask a little bit more on your AI initiatives. Can you talk about your tech platform investments? I know that was a big focus prior to the IPO, just how does that help the university move more quickly on implementing these AI initiatives, do you think that is a large differentiator, medium differentiator? How does that better position you compared to other education providers? Then related, does your OpenAI collaboration, does that give you an opportunity to align even more deeply with your B2B partners? Is there some extra layers of potential synergy between bringing these companies together just how important is your AI strategies to your longer-term vision?

Speaker 2

Yeah. Thanks for that question. We're really excited about our vision of where AI can take us across the university. We're focused on three key areas where we think AI will continue to be transformational in us pursuing our vision, the first area is just improving the learner experience based on the tremendous investments we've made in our data foundation and tech foundation. Secondarily, is just driving operational efficiency in how we deliver education, how we continue to give students better outcomes while reducing the cost to deliver those outcomes. The third area, and in my view, the most important, is our ability to equip adult learners with the skills that they need in a workforce that is being heavily impacted by AI. We embraced AI in the classroom early, ethically and responsibly. We've woven AI into all of our curriculum.

Speaker 2

We've included skill development in every course that a student takes. We're building more deep integration of discipline-specific AI assignments across all of our curriculum. We think we can move much more nimbly, we have moved much more nimbly than a lot of the competition because most of higher education has to go through a lot of governance systems. Just to adopt the governance philosophy, we're well ahead of that. We're equipping our students with AI skills today that are relevant in the workforce today. We think we have a lot of continued upside along those lines. OpenAI, this collaboration, we view it as very strategic. It accelerates all of these efforts. OpenAI is obviously one of the primary pioneers being utilized by the workforce.

Speaker 2

Part of this agreement is simply providing those tool sets to our students and our faculty so that we can more deeply integrate those tools into our curriculum. More importantly, we're going to collaborate with OpenAI on curriculum, on skill development, on pathways to the workforce. We look forward to finding ways to conduct research to really make sure that we're equipping adult learners with the skills they need today, and into the future. On the back end, we've been using OpenAI as a primary tool for quite some time now. We have considerable opportunities to continue to scale our models to continuously improve student outcomes while driving operating leverage into the business. The example that I shared earlier, the One Team Assistant, is just one example. It just shows the power of the tool.

Speaker 2

I mean, in fact, we rolled that out across student advisors, but that's a generative solution that summarizes exactly where they are with a student. Something that historically took some time to get organized at the beginning of a call, and it offers up next best action, so they can jump right into the most strategic part of the discussion. This saves considerable time, as well as gets the student to a better outcome. This is really just the start of how we're scaling solutions with the human in the center, so that we can continue to leverage AI in ways that make our advisors stronger and better in working with students and reduce costs to deliver in that process.

Speaker 2

As part of the OpenAI collaboration, we will be working with their solution engineers to accelerate those advancements also in the learning experience and operational efficiency areas as well.

Speaker 9

Great. Thanks for all that, Chris.

Speaker 2

You're welcome.

Operator

Our final question comes from the line of Jack Slevin with Jefferies. Your line is open.

Speaker 10

Hey, thanks for taking the question, and appreciate you squeezing me in here. Maybe I'll wrap it two questions into one here, so we can get everyone on their ways at the top of the hour. Just on the guidance point, revenue accelerates a little bit. I think you've hit a lot on sort of what's been happening on the AI and the search front, but more just sort of from a numbers perspective, when we think about what's implied in that 4Q revenue guide, a little step up in the pace. Can you talk about what sort of the drivers are there that give you confidence that you can get that growth rate turned up a little bit versus the past two quarters? The second question, just on the buyback front.

Speaker 10

Only $4 million of the $50 million authorization, how are you thinking about pacing and how quickly could you push that if you decided to really pull the lever, so to speak, on that front? Thanks.

Speaker 2

Yeah. On the revenue point, it's hard to get too deep into it in terms of guidance beyond Q4. In terms of your question, we've seen healthy retention. That's continued. We're seeing strong demand, as we work through this shift that we're seeing with AI search, we are seeing improvements as we navigate those changes. Those elements do play into how we're seeing Q4 versus Q3. The other element, Jack, I know you're new, so welcome. You may be familiar with this, we did have revenue that was generated again last year for a higher propensity of students that were coming into our risk-free program, which we offer to students with higher risk characteristics, sort of a try before you buy. The students that made it through that last year, we had a higher propensity drop from the institution in earlier courses.

Speaker 2

That's showing a little bit of a softened growth rate in Q3 and Q2 versus Q4, where we didn't have that experience year-over-year. That's just another thing to keep into consideration. In terms of your other question on the buyback, I'll hand that over to Blair.

Speaker 3

Yeah. Thanks, Chris. Jack, great to meet you virtually, appreciate the question. I'll just touch briefly upon our capital allocation strategy. Our priorities really remain unchanged, as discussed on this call, we are continuing to invest in student success, technology, and other initiatives that support our long-term sustainable growth. We do maintain a strong financial position with approximately $269 million of cash equivalents, and marketable securities, and no debt, as well as a revolving credit facility that provides for additional flexibility. We do remain committed to returning capital to shareholders through our quarterly dividend and share repurchase program. As mentioned, we currently have $46 million in capacity. Any consideration of accelerating our buybacks, we would think about float as well as volume considerations, we'd be very thoughtful as we approach that.

Speaker 3

Obviously, as has been discussed, we want to continue to evaluate M&A opportunities that complement our long-term strategy, enhance our capabilities, and create long-term shareholder value.

Speaker 10

Got it. Appreciate the welcome, guys, and all the color there.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Speaker 3

Thank you.

Operator

That concludes our question and answer session. I will now turn the conference back over to Mr. Chris Lynne for closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Okay. Thank you everyone for your questions and for joining us today. Our strategic priorities remain centered on student outcomes, employer engagement, and preparing learners for a rapidly evolving world of work. Those priorities continue to guide how we invest, innovate, and execute as we create long-term value for learners, employers, and shareholders. I want to thank our faculty and team members for their continued dedication to our students and their commitment to helping working adult learners achieve their educational and career goals. Thank you for your continued interest in Phoenix Education Partners.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call, and we thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.