Shares of Career Education Corp plunged 42 percent to their lowest in more than 10 years on Wednesday, a day after its chief executive resigned amid findings of improper placement practices, and increased accreditation risks.

The company also reported disappointing quarterly results 10 days ahead of schedule and said the decline in new student sign-ups will not improve in the near term.

At least two brokerages downgraded the stock to their lowest rating citing too many near-term risks.

FORCED EXIT?

Though the company did not tie the placement discrepancies to McCullough’s departure, analysts say he was kicked out for that very issue.

“The compliance issues were probably the main driver behind the CEO resignation,” analyst Dobell said. “An issue with compliance and honesty, particularly given McCullough’s background, was probably more than the board was willing to tolerate and more than McCullough was willing to stand for.”

McCullough was well respected and credited for cleaning up Career Education’s reputation and streamlining its operations, according to Robert W Baird analyst Amy Junker.

Check out the April search volume: http://www.forprofitedu.com/marketing-firms/search-volume/april-2009-search-volume/

There have been a number of entrants into the online degree space whose tuition are at significantly lower price points than the majors.  Some of these have seen tremendous enrollment growth over the last year to two. In addition, they have remained (in many cases) extremely profitable.  What are your thoughts on these low price providers?  How do you think they will fare long term?  Will they be able to continue to grow with the high marketing/lead costs? 

After speaking with many analysts and marketers it seems like the positive growth is continuing into the second quarter. Lead volume & enrollment growth seem to have continued from the first quarter. Lots of continued interest in investing into the for-profit arena is always a great sign. The only negative area has been the stock prices for many of the public’s. Are you seeing the same continued growth.

Take a look at the EDU stocks, now looks to be a good time to buy in at good prices and at multiples as low as they have been in a while.  With all the bullish discussion of late the EDU sector has taken a hit.  With people/investors being short sighted and thinking, hey if this is the beginning of a recover, we need to get out of those counter cyclical edu stocks now as they will surely go down…  Our thoughts are with what Samuel Clemens once wrote: Let us be thankful for the fools, but for them the rest of us would not succeed!  Sure the sheer volume of the selling and shorting may bring these stocks a little lower, but watch them continue to grow, continue to be profitable, and continue to be strong companies…. and ultimately their stock prices will continue to go higher.

I have heard a few rumors but wanted to see what you think. 2002-2003 was suck a massive year for acquisitions but we haven’t seen a boom year (regarding acquisitions) since. Whose ripe for the picking?  Whens the next roll-up coming out?  There are so many nice mid-sized private for-profit schools out there just lining up for the picking…

For its fiscal second quarter, Apollo Group reported earnings of $0.77 per share, $0.12 better than the First Call consensus of $0.65.

Revenues rose 26.3% year-over-year to $876.1 million, topping the consensus estimate of $865.5 million.

Contributing to the growth was a 20.4% year-over-year increase in degreed enrollment to 397,700.

With all of this good news the stock is down $12.00

 Why?

• Fear of increasing bad Debt
• Fear of increasing marketing costs…even though TV costs are down and online leads have remained consistant
• Fear that growth at this scale cannot continue at this pace
• Fear of management changes…even though that is to be expected with a new leader.

Since bad debt has increased for UoP, the market also pounded ESI as when it comes to bad debt fears, they are the one most feared followed by CECO & COCO.

How bad do you think the bad debt will be?

Feels almost like 2002-2003 again!  If their share prices continue to go up, we know what’s next!  Start up the acquisition machines again.   Hopefully this time around they will take it slow.   It’s good to see the shares of these two companies going up, I hope they both continue on the path of managed growth.