Greetings and welcome to the Adtalem Global Education Inc. Second Quarter 2026 Earnings. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Jay Spitzer, VP of IR. Thank you, Jay. You may begin.

Good afternoon, and welcome to our earnings call for the second quarter fiscal year 2026 results. On the call with me today are Stephen W. Beard, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Adtalem Global Education Inc., and Robert J. Phelan, Chief Financial Officer. Before I hand you over to Stephen, I will, as usual, take you through legal safe harbor and cautionary declarations. 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. We undertake no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statement after this presentation, whether as a result of new information, future events, changing assumptions, or otherwise. Please see our latest Form 10-K and Form 10-Q for discussions of risk factors as it relates to forward-looking statements. In today's presentation, we use certain non-GAAP financial measures, and we refer you to the appendix of the presentation materials available on our Investor Relations website for reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures and related information. You will find a link to the webcast on our Investor Relations website at investors.adtalem.com. After this call, the presentation webcast will be archived on the website for thirty days. I will now hand you over to Stephen. Thanks, Jay. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us.

This quarter marks our tenth consecutive quarter of enrollment growth. We remain on track to achieve our full-year revenue guidance of 6% to 8.5% growth, and we are raising our adjusted earnings per share guidance to 17% to 20% growth. As we enter 2026, we continue to execute against our strategic roadmap. Our strong second-quarter results reflect that execution. The momentum we have built over the last several years is proving sustainable, demonstrating the power of our differentiated business model. Our consistent performance, strong balance sheet, and robust cash generation power a value-creating capital allocation philosophy. This quarter, we deployed $165 million to share repurchases, and we have approximately $728 million remaining on our current authorization. We will continue to take a disciplined, returns-focused approach to capital allocation. Our focus on students and investments in modern innovative learning continue to yield strong academic, operational, and financial outcomes. Walden has achieved record total enrollment. More than 52,000 students now generate industry-leading scale and operating leverage. Chamberlain expanded its reach as the national leader in nursing, growing enrollment by 6,000 students in just three years to reach a record of 40,000 students. Ross Vet continues to graduate more veterinarians than any other school, and AUC and Ross Vet together graduate twice as many physicians as any MD-granting school in the United States. Simply put, we have established the quality and scale to be a trusted leader in healthcare talent development and an essential component in tackling America's healthcare workforce shortage. Now let me zoom out. We all read the headlines. The healthcare workforce crisis is not easing. It is intensifying. America's healthcare system begins 2026 substantially understaffed, with workforce gaps expected to deepen. The challenge exists everywhere but is particularly acute in rural communities and underserved urban areas where continuity of care…

Thank you, Stephen, and hello, everyone. Halfway through fiscal year 2026, we are executing against our growth with purpose strategy, putting us on track to meet our full-year financial goals. Importantly, we continue to enhance our financial foundation and increase our level of profitability by generating efficiencies through scale and operational excellence. This, in turn, is delivering significant cash flow and a more flexible balance sheet. Our robust financial performance is also allowing us to deploy capital in a balanced fashion, whether through share repurchases, debt repayment, or through investments in high ROI additional growth opportunities, including bringing new capacity to market and providing innovative student-facing technology. Taken together, we continue to build strategic momentum that supports long-term value creation. I'll now review the financial results and key drivers for our second quarter. Later in my remarks, I'll discuss our expectations and assumptions for the remainder of fiscal year 2026. Starting with the top line, revenue in the second quarter increased by 12.4% to $503.4 million, driven by all three segments. Walden continues to be a source of strength and, in particular, was aided by a one-week academic calendar shift from the third quarter into the second quarter this fiscal year, resulting in an incremental $18 million in revenue recognized in Q2 rather than in Q3. Excluding the one-week shift, revenue was up 8.4% versus last year for Adtalem. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA came in at $154.9 million, up 23.9% compared to the prior year. This growth was led by Walden, which again includes the incremental week, with MedVet contributing partially offset by Chamberlain. Adjusted EBITDA margin of 30.8% expanded 290 basis points from last year. Excluding the incremental one-week consolidated adjusted EBITDA margin was up 30 basis points year over year. Adjusted operating income was $126.1 million, up 24.3% compared…

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Jeffrey Marc Silber with BMO Capital Markets. Please proceed.

Thank you so much. I'm actually going to start with Walden. I'll let some other folks focus on Chamberlain. Even excluding the calendar shift, the Walden numbers continue to impress. Can we just double-click on that? What exactly is going on? Where are you seeing the growth? Do you think you're taking share from other schools in this market?

Yes. So, the Walden growth is consistent across the board, but we see it most pronounced in the areas that we've consistently been most excited about. That's in the behavioral sciences programs and also in the nursing program and the MSN credential. To a lesser extent, you know, we're seeing great returns on our investments in the education programs at Walden. As we increasingly look to expand that institute, undergraduate enrollments, we're having great traction there as well. So really pleased with the balanced growth across the program mix at Walden.

Okay. And then maybe shifting to one of the regulatory issues. We're expecting some changes in the loan caps this July. I know you had announced an earlier partnership with Sallie Mae. Can we get an update in terms of what's going on there?

Yeah. We're working with Sallie Mae on definitive documentation for that partnership. Sallie Mae has also been working to pull together the syndicate of capital sources that will actually provide the loan dollars. But we continue to be excited about that partnership and what it means for the entire portfolio, including the medical and veterinary segment. We're obviously expecting to have to utilize supplemental lending sources the most. So more to come on that, but we continue to move at pace with them, and we'll be excited to announce definitive documentation once it's complete.

Okay. Great. I'll jump back in the queue. Thanks.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jack Garner Slevin with Jefferies. Please proceed.

Hey, guys. Congrats on the quarter and thanks for taking the question. I am going to decide to dig in on Chamberlain a little bit. So if we just look, you know, really encouraging sign on the double-digit growth. I guess the immediate question becomes sort of if you could remind us of what that typical lead time is, and I'm hearing the emphasis in the fall cycle, but maybe just walking a little more detail on sort of, you know, what exactly is going right as you're, you know, you've enacted some of those changes you called out last quarter and then whether or not that sort of, you know, lags through the second half and then see the rebound or, you know, sort of an inflection around the fall cycle tracks to what you typically would expect? Thanks.

Happy to speak to it. As we said before, we identified a couple of gaps: marketing effectiveness and enrollment funnel conversion. We took a number of steps to address processes on both dimensions. And as you'll note, we also took a number of steps to make changes in personnel across the Chamberlain organization. We feel really good about the implications of those moves. As I said in the prepared remarks, some of the leading indicators of enrollment have been really positive. Application volumes up for both pre-licensure and post-licensure nursing programs. You have to remember that fall cycle is the biggest cycle of the Chamberlain fiscal year. And it creates a big hole to dig out of. But we are confident in the trajectory of the recovery. So while we expect the total enrollment story on a quarter-over-quarter basis to be flat over the balance of the fiscal year, we do expect as we approach that fall enrollment cycle to be in a position to go back to a positive total enrollment year over year and get back to a total enrollment trajectory consistent with what we've enjoyed in the last few cycles. So we think we have the situation well in hand. We feel good about the early signals we're seeing, and we're confident that we exit the fiscal year moving towards a positive total enrollment growth in Chamberlain, with the benefit of a robust trajectory in pre-licensure and a return to form in post-licensure nursing.

Got it. Okay. Really helpful, Stephen. One more for me here. You know, I guess, running some quick numbers. The last few years, you've seen roughly $60 million of improvement in revenues second half versus first half. Obviously, you have the Walden callout, right, on the timing of that one-week impact. But even adjusting for that, it looks like the high end of the guide at about $45 million. Guess I'd just be curious to sort of describe what the scenario would play out that would see you sort of meet or exceed the high end of that guide? Is it simply Chamberlain coming in a little ahead or really, you know, where you could envision that upside potentially coming from if it were to materialize? Thanks.

Yeah. I think it would come from a quicker than anticipated return to form at Chamberlain and potentially some additional acceleration in the trajectory at the MedVet segment. We think we're moving at sort of an optimal clip at Walden, so it would come from the other two segments.

Okay. Got it. Super helpful. Congrats again on the quarter and looking forward to seeing you at Investor Day. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'd like to pass the call back over to Stephen for any closing remarks.

Yes, I want to do two things. First, thank all of our colleagues across the Adtalem Global Education Inc. portfolio for all of their incredible work over the course of the last quarter. We've come back from the break in the calendar year to hit the ground running aggressively. I also just want to put out a plug for our upcoming Investor Day on February 24. We've got a lot of news that we're prepared to share. We're really excited about it. We look forward to having you all participate virtually or in person. Thank you so much.

Thank you. This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.