Strayer Education, Inc. Q3 2009 Earnings Call Transcript

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2009-10-29 13:13:07.0

Tags: Revenue, Bank, Call Transcript, Earnings, Strayer Education Inc., Revenue Recognition, Operational Accounting, Financial Services, Finance, Seeking Alpha

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

Thank you. (Operator instructions) And we’ll go first with Sara Gubins with Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Sara Gubins - Bank of America/Merrill Lynch

Hi. Thanks. Good morning.

Rob Silberman

Good morning, Sara.

Sara Gubins - Bank of America/Merrill Lynch

First question, could you talk about the expected contribution from new campuses relative to the 20% enrollment outlook in 2010?

Rob Silberman

It won’t be very much. I mean, when we open a new campus that first year, we just get a handful of students, and we were quite patient in terms of how we think about these campus growths. So I would guess, in total, it’s not more than a percent.

Mark Brown

A percent or two.

Rob Silberman

Yes. So as I said, there’ll just be handful of students in each. And particularly the ones that we opened at the back end of the year will not have very much impact at all.

Sara Gubins - Bank of America/Merrill Lynch

Okay. And then you mentioned ancillary revenues having been a help during the year. Could you just talk about what that is?

Rob Silberman

Sure. There’s a variety of things. We have graduation fees. We have, I guess, withdrawal fees when people withdraw. Some of those are contra-revenue items, scholarships, we have a military scholarship. And anything else at the top of your head, Mark?

Mark Brown

Corporate discounts.

Rob Silberman

Yes, corporate discounts. So if those are lower than we expect that creates a little more revenue per student. I would say the inter-quarter drops are the larger issue for us.

Sara Gubins - Bank of America/Merrill Lynch

Okay. And then last question, it's probably the question of the week. But can you talk a bit about your revenue recognition policy, how you do refunds for students? And just walk us through maybe a little bit more detail what the contra-accounts for revenue are?

Rob Silberman

Sure. Well, I’ll try. And Mark, you interrupt if I’m--

Mark Brown

I’ll try.

Rob Silberman

That's probably the best way to start is to recognize that we have a relatively simple structure because our academic terms -- we only have four academic terms a year. It’s kind of a traditional university structure. And each of those academic terms are almost exactly aligned with our financial quarters to support even more specifically, each of those academic terms both start and end within a financial quarter. So it makes the revenue recognition relatively simple from that standpoint.

 

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