Apollo Education stock declines after enrollments nosedive

Apollo Education Group stock suffered a major blow as the for-profit University of Phoenix reported massive decline in student enrollments. The stock declined 28 percent to close at $20.04, marking the biggest loss in a single day since the listing on the stock markets. The University of Phoenix reported 13 percent decline in the number of student enrollments.

Apollo Education Group announced a cut in its revenue forecast as the number of students enrolled for the quarter ended February 28 declined to 28,300. Apollo also reduced marketing spends, CEO Gregory Cappelli said during a conference call. The revenue for the quarter declined by 14 percent.

“We adjusted our marketing type and spend, as well as our contact strategies this quarter. We’re on track to fix the technology platform issues, which we believe adversely impacted retention,” said Cappelli.

Apollo Chief of Staff, Mark Brenner marked it as a challenging quarter and suggested that certain changes would be required to deal with the downward trend in student enrollments. Brenner said, “I think what we've learned over the last couple of quarters we need to continued to invest in creating a better student experience, we need to have the best online classroom for students.”

A CNN report has estimated the enrollments at 213,000 compared to 460,000 five years ago, at the University of Phoenix. Apollo Education Group revised revenue estimate to $2.63 billion to $2.68 billion for the year ending August 2015.