Aspen Group Reports Record Revenue of $67.8 million or 38% Growth in Fiscal Year 2021

• BSN Pre-Licensure and USU fourth quarter 2021 revenue accounted for 51% of consolidated revenue
  
• Introduces Full-year Guidance for Fiscal 2022

NEW YORK, July 13, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- July 13, 2021 - Aspen Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: ASPU) (“AGI”), an education technology holding company, today announced financial results for its fourth quarter and fiscal year ended April 30, 2021, and introduced guidance for revenue, Net income (loss), GAAP earnings per share, EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA for fiscal year 2022.

Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2021 Summary Results Table

¹ GAAP gross profit calculation includes marketing and promotional costs, instructional costs & services, and amortization expense.
² Non-GAAP financial measure. See reconciliations of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures under “Non-GAAP–Financial Measures” starting on page 5.

“Aspen Group finished the fiscal year with solid momentum in our three business units, which produced 35% year-over-year revenue growth in the fourth quarter and 38% for the full year. Each of our business units delivered impressive growth, with USU’s MSN-FNP and Aspen University’s BSN Pre-Licensure programs being the most significant contributors,” said Michael Mathews, Chairman and CEO of AGI. “We are introducing full year guidance and a plan to manage expenses while continuing to deliver industry-leading growth rates. This gives us a clear line of sight to reducing losses and cash burn, with the goal of achieving profitability in Q4 of fiscal year 2022.”

Fiscal Q4 2021 Financial and Operational Results (versus Fiscal Q4 2020)

Revenues increased 35% to $19.1 million for Fiscal Q4 2021, compared to $14.1 million in Fiscal Q4 2020. USU accounted for 30%, and AU’s BSN Pre-Licensure program accounted for 21% of the Company’s consolidated revenues.

Gross profit increased by 19% to $9.9 million or 52% gross margin for Fiscal Q4 2021 versus $8.4 million or 59% gross margin in Fiscal Q4 2020. The year-over-year gross margin decrease was an expected result following the launch of three new BSN Pre-Licensure campuses and gross margin is expected to improve throughout Fiscal Year 2022. AU gross margin represented 52% of AU revenues for Fiscal Q4 2021, and USU gross margin represented 57% of USU revenues for Fiscal Q4 2021.

AU instructional costs and services represented 24% of AU revenues for Fiscal Q4 2021, while USU instructional costs and services represented 25% of USU revenues for Fiscal Q4 2021. AU marketing and promotional costs represented 21% of AU revenues for Fiscal Q4 2021, while USU marketing and promotional costs represented 18% of USU revenues for Fiscal Q4 2021.

Net loss was ($2.3 million) or net loss per basic share of ($0.09) for Fiscal Q4 2021 versus ($0.7 million) or ($0.03) for the prior-year period. For Fiscal Q4 2021, AU generated $1.4 million of net income, and USU generated $1.0 million of net income. AGI corporate incurred a net loss of ($4.7 million) for Fiscal Q4 2021.

EBITDA, a non-GAAP financial measure, was ($1.4 million) or (8%) margin in Fiscal Q4 2021, as compared to EBITDA of $0.2 million or 2% margin in Fiscal Q4 2020. Adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP financial measure, was $0.6 million or 3% margin in Fiscal Q4 2021, as compared to $1.4 million or 10% margin in the prior-year period.

AU generated EBITDA of $2.2 million or 16% margin and Adjusted EBITDA of $2.6 million or 20% margin for Fiscal Q4 2021. In Fiscal Q4 2021, AU’s BSN Pre-Licensure program accounted for $0.9 million of the $2.2 million EBITDA generated at AU, operating at an EBITDA margin of 24%, which is the highest EBITDA margin unit of the Company. USU generated EBITDA of $1.1 million or 19% margin and $1.4 million of Adjusted EBITDA or 24% margin in the Fiscal Q4 2021. AGI corporate incurred EBITDA of ($4.7 million) and Adjusted EBITDA of ($3.3 million) for Fiscal Q4 2021, which includes $1.1 million of one-time expense items.

Fiscal Year 2021 Full Year Financial and Operational Results (versus Fiscal Year 2020)

Revenues increased 38% to $67.8 million for Fiscal Year 2021, compared to $49.1 million in the prior year. For Fiscal Year 2021, USU accounted for 29%, and AU’s BSN Pre-Licensure program accounted for 21% of the Company’s consolidated revenues.

Gross profit increased by 28% to $36.9 million or 54% gross margin for Fiscal Year 2021 versus $28.9 million or 59% gross margin in the prior year. For Fiscal Year 2021, AU gross margin represented 55% of AU revenues, and USU gross margin represented 58% of USU revenues.

For Fiscal Year 2021, AU instructional costs and services represented 22% of AU revenues, while USU instructional costs and services represented 25% of USU revenues. AU marketing and promotional costs represented 20% of AU revenues for Fiscal Year 2021, while USU marketing and promotional costs represented 18% of USU revenues.

Net loss was ($10.4 million) or net loss per basic share of ($0.44) for Fiscal Year 2021 versus ($5.7 million) or ($0.29) in the prior year period. AU generated $7.3 million of net income, and USU generated $2.9 million of net income in Fiscal Year 2021. AGI corporate incurred a net loss of ($20.7 million) for Fiscal Year 2021.

EBITDA, a non-GAAP financial measure, was ($6.0 million) or (9%) margin in Fiscal Year 2021 as compared to EBITDA of ($1.6 million) or (3%) margin in the prior year period. Adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP financial measure, was $1.3 million or 2% margin in Fiscal Year 2021 compared to Adjusted EBITDA of $2.7 million or 6% margin in the prior year.

AU generated EBITDA of $9.5 million or 20% margin and Adjusted EBITDA of $11.6 million or 24% margin for Fiscal Year 2021. AU’s BSN Pre-Licensure program accounted for $4.1 million of the $9.5 million EBITDA generated at AU, operating at an EBITDA margin of 29%, the highest margin unit of the Company. USU generated EBITDA of $3.1 million or 16% margin and $3.6 million of Adjusted EBITDA or 18% margin in the Fiscal Year 2021. AGI corporate incurred EBITDA of ($18.6 million), and Adjusted EBITDA of ($14.0 million), which reflects $2.7 million of one-time expense items.

Liquidity

At April 30, 2021, the Company reported unrestricted cash and cash equivalents of $8.5 million and total liquidity of $13.5 million, including our undrawn $5 million credit facility, which was a decrease of unrestricted cash and cash equivalents of $5.8 million for the full fiscal year 2021 or a sequential decrease from Fiscal Q3 2021 of $1.5 million.

Outlook for Fiscal Year 2022

Mr. Mathews continued, “We see several growth drivers for fiscal 2022. We expect that the move to double cohorts for our high-LTV BSN Pre-Licensure program at our main Phoenix campus will increase revenue from the Phoenix metro to approximately $18 million, which offsets the lower planned enrollments in the Phoenix metro due to the pipeline of first-year (pre-professional nursing) PPN online students nearing its target capacity. Another growth driver will be USU’s MSN-FNP program, our second highest LTV program, where the tremendous growth we have seen to date is expected to continue. The third growth driver will be continued enrollment growth and class starts at our new BSN Pre-licensure campuses in Austin, Tampa, and Nashville.”

“The Company is introducing today a business plan that we are calling ‘Aspen 2.0.’ Aspen 2.0 is designed to deliver maximum efficiency as defined by revenue earned from each marketing dollar spent. Growth spending will be focused on our highest efficiency businesses to accelerate the growth in these units, with decreased spending in our lowest efficiency unit (an area where high growth is not essential), specifically, we plan to reduce marketing spending in our traditional AU Nursing + Unit. In addition, we plan to reduce spending in our Phoenix metro BSN Pre-Licensure, which is nearing capacity. Those marketing dollars will be redirected towards high LTV programs, specifically our three new BSN Pre-Licensure metros, AU’s online doctoral programs, and USU’s MSN-FNP program.

We’re forecasting that this ‘maximum efficiency’ spending plan will result in roughly a 1% total enrollment increase, translating to an increase of bookings year-over-year of 6%, from $143.4 million to $151.3 million, which continues to set the Company up for consistent, sustained growth in the coming years. Moreover, this spending plan is forecasted to decrease our advertising spending to approximately 17% of revenue in fiscal 2022, down from 19% in fiscal 2021.

Lastly, we plan to delay our next BSN Pre-Licensure campus launch to the Spring of 2022, or approximately at the end of fiscal year 2022. Our next metro launch will be in a Tier 1 market with a population larger than the Phoenix metro. The combination of reducing advertising spend growth and pushing out the next BSN Pre-Licensure campus launch gives us a clear line of sight to increasing leverage, lowering cash burn and reducing losses in fiscal 2022. We believe this will permit us to achieve our near-term goal of GAAP profitability and turning cash flow positive by the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022.”

The table below shows the Company’s guidance for fiscal year 2022:

¹ Year-over-year growth rate or increase is calculated from the mid-point of the guidance range.
² The Company anticipates positive GAAP net income and earnings per share in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2022.
³ Non-GAAP financial measure. See reconciliations of GAAP to Non-GAAP financial measures under “Non-GAAP–Financial Measures” starting on page 5.

The table below shows the actual advertising spend, enrollments and bookings by university for fiscal year 2021 and estimated advertising spend, enrollments and bookings by university for fiscal year 2022, as well as forecasted year-over-year changes.

Advertising Budgets, Enrollments and Bookings by University

*AU has begun proactively reducing spend and enrollments in the BSN Pre-Licensure Phoenix market given the pipeline of first-year Pre-Professional Nursing (PPN) online students in the Phoenix metro is nearing its 1,650 target capacity. Consequently, AU projects ~1,000 BSN Pre-Licensure enrollments in the Phoenix metro in FY’22, a reduction from ~1,600 in FY’21.

Fiscal Q4 2021 Earnings Conference Call Details:

Aspen Group will host a conference call to discuss its fourth quarter and full-year fiscal 2021 financial results and business outlook on Tuesday, July 13, 2021, at 4:30 p.m. (ET). 

The conference call can be accessed by dialing toll-free (844) 452-6823 (US) or (731) 256-5216 (international), passcode 4168399. After the call, a transcript of the audio cast will be available on the Company’s website at ir.aspen.edu. There will also be a seven-day dial-in replay which can be accessed by dialing toll-free (855) 859-2056 (US) or (404) 537-3406 (international), passcode 4168399.

Non-GAAP – Financial Measures:

This press release includes both financial measures in accordance with the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, or GAAP, as well as non-GAAP financial measures. Generally, a non-GAAP financial measure is a numerical measure of a company’s performance, financial position or cash flows that either excludes or includes amounts that are not normally included or excluded in the most directly comparable measure calculated and presented in accordance with GAAP. Non-GAAP financial measures should be viewed as supplemental to, and should not be considered as alternatives to net income (loss), operating income (loss), and cash flow from operating activities, liquidity or any other financial measures. They may not be indicative of the historical operating results of AGI nor are they intended to be predictive of potential future results. Investors should not consider non-GAAP financial measures in isolation or as substitutes for performance measures calculated in accordance with GAAP.

Our management uses and relies on Adjusted EBITDA and EBITDA, each of which are non-GAAP financial measures. We believe that both management and shareholders benefit from referring to these non-GAAP financial measures in planning, forecasting and analyzing future periods. Our management uses these non-GAAP financial measures in evaluating its financial and operational decision making and as a means to evaluate period-to-period comparisons. Our management recognizes that the non-GAAP financial measures have inherent limitations because of the excluded items described below.

AGI defines Adjusted EBITDA as earnings (or loss) from operations before the items in the table below. It is important to note that there were $1,134,629 of non-recurring charges for the fiscal quarter ended April 30, 2021 compared to $77,000 in the fiscal quarter ended April 30, 2020. Adjusted EBITDA is an important measure of our operating performance because it allows management, investors and analysts to evaluate and assess our core operating results from period-to-period after removing the impact of items of a non-recurring nature that affect comparability.

We have included a reconciliation of our non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable financial measures calculated in accordance with GAAP. We believe that providing the non-GAAP financial measures, together with the reconciliation to GAAP, helps investors make comparisons between AGI and other companies. In making any comparisons to other companies, investors need to be aware that companies use different non-GAAP measures to evaluate their financial performance. Investors should pay close attention to the specific definition being used and to the reconciliation between such measure and the corresponding GAAP measure provided by each Company under applicable SEC rules.

AGI defines Adjusted EBITDA as EBITDA excluding: (1) bad debt expense; (2) stock-based compensation; and (3) other non-recurring charges. The following table presents a reconciliation of net loss to EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA:

The following tables present a reconciliation of net income (loss) to EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA by business unit:

Guidance for Fiscal Year 2022

The following table presents a reconciliation of net loss to EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA for fiscal year 2022 Guidance ranges (dollar amounts in millions):

Definitions

Bookings - defined by multiplying Lifetime Value by new student enrollments for each operating unit.

LTV or Lifetime Value - Lifetime Value is the weighted average total amount of tuition and fees paid by every new student that enrolls in the Company’s universities, after giving effect to attrition.

EBITDA Margin - is defined as EBITDA divided by revenues. We believe EBITDA margin is useful for analysts and investors as this measure allows a more meaningful comparison between our performance and that of our competitors. EBITDA margin has certain limitations in that it does not take into account the impact to our consolidated statement of operations of certain expenses.

Adjusted EBITDA Margin - is defined as Adjusted EBITDA divided by revenues. We believe Adjusted EBITDA margin is useful for analysts and investors as this measure allows a more meaningful comparison between our performance and that of our competitors. Adjusted EBITDA margin has certain limitations in that it does not take into account the impact to our consolidated statement of operations of certain expenses.

Forward-Looking Statements:

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 including the Company’s expected future operating results including its goal of achieving profitability in the fourth quarter of Fiscal 2022, the expected growth in Fiscal 2022 and the drivers for such growth, the expected increase in revenue from the Phoenix metro and its anticipated impact on our results, our plans to reduce advertising spending year-over-year in the AU Nursing + Unit and in our BSN Pre-Licensure Phoenix metro, and redirect that advertising spend towards our highest LTV programs, our expectations with respect to future increased leverage, lower cash burn, and reduced losses, anticipated changes in enrollments and bookings in fiscal 2022, the anticipated continued growth in the USU’s MSN-FNP program and the expected timing of the next BSN Pre-Licensure campus launch. The words “believe,” “may,” “estimate,” “continue,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “should,” “plan,” “could,” “target,” “potential,” “is likely,” “will,” “expect” and similar expressions, as they relate to us, are intended to identify forward-looking statements. We have based these forward-looking statements largely on our current expectations and projections about future events and financial trends that we believe may affect our financial condition, results of operations, business strategy and financial needs. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ from those in the forward-looking statements include the continued demand of nursing students for the new programs, student attrition, any further spread of COVID-19, national and local economic factors including the future impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy, the competitive impact from the trend of major non-profit universities using online education, the receipt of necessary regulatory approvals for the new campus, and the risk that the Company’s assumptions with respect to its fiscal year 2022 performance may be incorrect. Other risks are included in our filings with the SEC including our Form 10-K for the year ended April 30, 2021. Any forward-looking statement made by us herein speaks only as of the date on which it is made. Factors or events that could cause our actual results to differ may emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for us to predict all of them. We undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise, except as may be required by law.

About Aspen Group, Inc.:

Aspen Group, Inc. is an education technology holding company that leverages its infrastructure and expertise to allow its two universities, Aspen University and United States University, to deliver on the vision of making college affordable again.

Investor Relations Contact:

Kim Rogers
Managing Director
Hayden IR
385-831-7337 
Kim@HaydenIR.com

GAAP Financial Statements

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CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS

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CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS (CONTINUED)

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CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS

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CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF CHANGES IN STOCKHOLDERS’ EQUITY
YEARS ENDED APRIL 30, 2021 AND 2020

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CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS

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CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS (CONTINUED)

The following table provides a reconciliation of cash and cash equivalents and restricted cash reported within the consolidated balance sheet that sum to the same such amounts shown in the consolidated statement of cash flows:

Released July 13, 2021