Strategic Education's Capella University Partners With Fraser

Capella University, a unit of Strategic Education, Inc. or SEI (NASDAQ:STRA) , has teamed up with Fraser, Minnesota’s largest provider of early childhood mental health and autism support services. This move is aimed at filling the skills gap and meeting the evolving education needs of clinicians.

This partnership will take into account the evolving education requirements of clinicians, while eradicating industry skills gap. Via this move, Fraser will promote Capella University’s program offerings to current employees. These programs will primarily include the University’s graduate certificates, bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in the Applied Behavior Analysis or ABA field.

In addition to ABA, Capella is promoting the Fraser initiative to learners and alumni who have completed or are pursing certificates as well as bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral degrees in a variety of disciplines such as Clinical Psychology, Social Work, Play Therapy, Clinical Mental Health Counseling, and Marriage and Family Therapy to align with the wide spectrum of Fraser’s services.

Notably, one in 59 American children is diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), per CDC. ABA is a widely-accepted treatment for ASD. Ironically, research shows that as ASD prevalence increases, the demand for certified behavioral analysts also significantly rises, implying a shortage of these professionals.

Capella University and its parent company, SEI, continuously invest in introducing new programs and specializations to improve student outcomes. Continuous innovation and course updates expand its product portfolio, which in turn boost enrollments and drive long-term growth.

Both Strayer and Capella segments have been exhibiting stellar enrollment results. Both the universities exhibited solid operating results in the first three quarters of 2019. In the third quarter, Strayer and Capella registered growth in new student enrollment of 4% and 7%, and total enrollment of 11% and 2%, respectively.

Shares of this for-profit education company, SEI, have gained 44.7% in the past year, outperforming the Zacks Schools industry’s 41.6% growth. SEI — which shares space with Adtalem Global Education Inc. (NYSE:ATGE) in the same industry — has been benefitting from both Strayer and Capella Universities’ convenient, accessible and flexible educational programs, thereby boosting enrollment and revenues.

Zacks Rank & Key Picks

Strategic Education currently holds a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell). Some better-ranked stocks in the same industry are New Oriental Education & Technology Group Inc. (NYSE:EDU) and TAL Education Group (NYSE:TAL) , each carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

New Oriental’s earnings for the current fiscal year are expected to rise 33.3%.

TAL Education’s trailing 12-month return on equity was 8.5%, higher than the industry’s 6.1%.

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