Profit up 19% for GCU parent

Enrollment is up 47% at company’s W. Phoenix campus

Strong and growing support from Arizonans helped push revenue sharply higher for Grand Canyon University’s parent company during the second quarter, the company reported Tuesday.

Net income for Phoenixbased Grand Canyon Education reached $142 million, nearly 19 percent higher than a year ago, and enrollment stood at 51,200, up 15 percent, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

One reason for the boost was an extra1,200 students enrolled in the for-profit, Christian school’s west Phoenix campus, a 47 percent increase from 2012.

During a conference call with investors, company executives made clear that Arizona will play a central role in the school’s rising profile.

“The big growth for the university right now is in Arizona, with both traditional and non-traditional students,” said Brian Mueller, the company’s president and CEO.

That was underscored earlier in the day when GCU announced it plans to build a $150 million, 100-acre satellite campus in Mesa late next year, tapping into another promis-

ing region of the Valley, Mueller said. That site is expected to house administrative staff now in Tempe and up to 10,000 students.

Mueller said the East Valley site could be even more favorable for the university demographically than the west Phoenix campus and, as areas like Los Angeles have shown, there is room for more than one school, a reference to the considerable shadow cast by Arizona State University in Tempe and neighboring community colleges.

On July1, GCU’s money-losing athletics program jumped to Division I and GCU joined the Western Athletic Conference. The Phoenix campus, an aggressive ad campaign and wider exposure in sports may help lift enrollment to even higher levels, officials said.

Grand Canyon’s net income climbed to $19 million in the recent second quarter, up from $16 million in the same period one year earlier. Diluted earnings per share were 42 cents, topping analysts’ estimates of 40 cents per share.

GCU’s stock fell 24 cents to $35.25 per share on Tuesday and was rising quickly in early after-hours trading. The stock has more than doubled in the past year.