New York, June 4, 2026, 10:02 EDT
- Perdoceo shares rose about 2.6% in early Nasdaq trading, outpacing a weaker broader tech market.
- The move put fresh attention on the company’s May earnings beat, dividend date and 2026 profit outlook.
- Risks remain tied to enrollment trends, federal student aid rules and regulation of for-profit education.
Perdoceo Education shares climbed in early U.S. trading on Thursday, bucking a soft start for the Nasdaq as investors returned to a small education-services stock still trading below its 52-week high.
The Nasdaq-listed company’s stock was last quoted at $33.94, up 85 cents, or about 2.6%, after opening at $33.44. It traded between $33.40 and $33.98 on volume of 19,185 shares, with a market value of about $2.15 billion.
That mattered on a morning when U.S. equity trading had a split tone. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq opened lower after Broadcom’s revenue miss hit chip stocks, while the Dow rose, Reuters reported.
There was no fresh earnings report in the past day. The stock move instead put Perdoceo’s May 7 first-quarter update back in view, along with a coming June 12 dividend payment and management’s 2026 outlook. The company said its board declared a quarterly dividend of 15 cents a share, payable to holders of record as of June 1.
Perdoceo reported first-quarter revenue of $221.7 million, up 4.1% from a year earlier. Operating income rose 22.0% to $63.1 million, while diluted earnings per share rose to 85 cents from 65 cents.
Adjusted earnings per share — a profit measure that strips out some items management says do not reflect core operations — rose 28.6% to 90 cents. Perdoceo said total student enrollment was 48,740 at March 31, up 1.1% from a year earlier, with growth at Colorado Technical University and University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences partly offset by a decline at the American InterContinental University System.
Chief Executive Todd Nelson said in the earnings release that first-quarter results were “ahead of our expectations.” He also said student retention and engagement were near “multi-year highs,” a point investors tend to watch closely because online and career-focused education companies rely on keeping students enrolled long enough to convert marketing spending into revenue. SEC
The company’s guidance also gave buyers something to measure. Perdoceo forecast full-year 2026 adjusted earnings per diluted share of $3.05 to $3.16, compared with $2.61 in 2025, and adjusted operating income of $254 million to $263 million.
Peers in the education-services group were also firmer in early trade. Strategic Education rose about 1.6%, Stride gained about 2.0% and Laureate Education advanced about 1.6%, suggesting the move was not only Perdoceo-specific.
But the setup is not clean. Perdoceo said its outlook assumes no material hit from federal budget talks, student-aid availability, new rules, agency actions or legal and regulatory matters. A shift in any of those areas could hurt enrollment, raise compliance costs or pressure the stock, especially because for-profit education companies remain sensitive to federal student aid and Department of Education policy.
For now, traders have a simple near-term marker: whether Perdoceo can hold Thursday’s early gain while the broader Nasdaq trades under pressure. The next bigger test is whether enrollment and retention keep supporting the profit targets management laid out for 2026.
