Adtalem Global Education Inc. (NYSE:ATGE) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Jeff Meuler: Okay. Just one more on Chamberlain. The total enrollment growth at Chamberlain decelerated. I know it was just a little bit, but it decelerated a little into an easier comp. And it feels like the new enrollment commentary there has been better for a couple of quarters now. So just any explanation, any timing factors as to why there was a little deceleration in Chamberlain total enrollment?

Steve Beard: Largely graduation driven. We – yes, it was really a good problem to have, but a larger than the typical graduation, almost the huge BSN cohort that came through this year. But again, nothing that we believe is going to decelerate the overall total enrollment momentum for Chamberlain across the full fiscal year.

Jeff Meuler: Okay. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. And our next question comes from Jeff Silber with BMO Capital Markets. Please state your question.

Jeff Silber: Thank you so much. You mentioned some of the investments that you’re going to be doing this year. Can you remind us where these investments are? Are they specific to any one of the different segments? And what the pace of investing will be over the course of the fiscal year?

Steve Beard: Right. So the investments we made in consistent with the growth with purpose strategy that we laid out at Investor Day. They are investments that cut across five categories of value-creating activity, marketing, enrollment, retention, pricing and new programs. In terms of the pacing of those investments, Bob keep me honest here, but we expect those investments will be heavier in the first half of the fiscal year, particularly those that relate to marketing than they will be in the back half of the year. But these are investments that we also have a high degree of confidence will drive organic revenue growth over the course of the fiscal year.

Jeff Silber: Okay. My next question is just regarding enrollment trends, both from new and total enrollments. If there’s any color – if you can provide any color in terms of how the fiscal year has started, I want to see what kind of momentum you have going into this year?

Steve Beard: Yes. As you know, we don’t break out new enrollment. But what I can tell you qualitatively, Jeff, is that lots of the gains we had seen in the back half of last fiscal year coming into this fiscal year was really driven by some fantastic improvements in persistence rates across all the institutions, but particularly at Walden. And now we are beginning to see a similar dynamic in new enrollment, and that’s really the combination that we’re looking for. Driving improvements in persistence where we get the lifetime value of our students and our students get the benefit of their investment by matriculating through to graduation and bringing new students in, in a normalized environment that drives up that new enrollment number. So while we don’t break it out sequentially, it started with persistence and now we’re seeing the tailwinds in new enrollment at Chamberlain and at Walden.

Jeff Silber: All right. If I could just sneak in one more. I know you raised the lower end of your adjusted EPS guidance for the current fiscal year. Was there anything specifically driving that? I’m just curious what happened since Investor Day, if there’s anything that’s changed. Thanks.

Steve Beard: I think we’re just feeling really good about what we’re seeing by way of market signals around new enrollment. And we also think we’ve got even more headroom to improve persistence. And so we’re just more confident coming into the new fiscal year. We also – as you know, we think we’re pretty good at managing the cost line across the business and investing thoughtfully. So we thought it made sense to tighten the range because we’re feeling good about where we are.

Jeff Silber: Okay. Fair enough. Thanks so much.