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Investors in Grand Canyon Education, Inc. (NASDAQ:LOPE) had a good week, as its shares rose 7.7% to close at US$193 following the release of its first-quarter results. Grand Canyon Education reported US$289m in revenue, roughly in line with analyst forecasts, although statutory earnings per share (EPS) of US$2.52 beat expectations, being 2.9% higher than what the analysts expected. Following the result, the analysts have updated their earnings model, and it would be good to know whether they think there's been a strong change in the company's prospects, or if it's business as usual. We've gathered the most recent statutory forecasts to see whether the analysts have changed their earnings models, following these results.
Taking into account the latest results, the current consensus from Grand Canyon Education's three analysts is for revenues of US$1.09b in 2025. This would reflect a reasonable 4.3% increase on its revenue over the past 12 months. Per-share earnings are expected to increase 4.1% to US$8.55. In the lead-up to this report, the analysts had been modelling revenues of US$1.09b and earnings per share (EPS) of US$8.40 in 2025. The consensus analysts don't seem to have seen anything in these results that would have changed their view on the business, given there's been no major change to their estimates.
See our latest analysis for Grand Canyon Education
The consensus price target rose 6.7% to US$213despite there being no meaningful change to earnings estimates. It could be that the analystsare reflecting the predictability of Grand Canyon Education's earnings by assigning a price premium. That's not the only conclusion we can draw from this data however, as some investors also like to consider the spread in estimates when evaluating analyst price targets. There are some variant perceptions on Grand Canyon Education, with the most bullish analyst valuing it at US$215 and the most bearish at US$208 per share. Still, with such a tight range of estimates, it suggeststhe analysts have a pretty good idea of what they think the company is worth.
These estimates are interesting, but it can be useful to paint some more broad strokes when seeing how forecasts compare, both to the Grand Canyon Education's past performance and to peers in the same industry. The period to the end of 2025 brings more of the same, according to the analysts, with revenue forecast to display 5.7% growth on an annualised basis. That is in line with its 4.9% annual growth over the past five years. By contrast, our data suggests that other companies (with analyst coverage) in a similar industry are forecast to see their revenues grow 11% per year. So it's pretty clear that Grand Canyon Education is expected to grow slower than similar companies in the same industry.