APEIAmerican Public Education, Inc.
Is it safe?
Mostly sound, with a caveat: comfortable debt (AA), but big price swings.
Net cash and profitable. A rule of thumb on leverage, not a credit rating.
Large price swings, high volatility. Worst drawdown -91% · now 20% below its 52-week high.
Where this answer is blind. Altman sits structurally low for utilities and pipelines; Beneish runs high for fast growers, since sales growth alone lifts it; banks and REITs are excluded.
Can APEI take a bad year?
American Public Education, Inc. holds $136M more cash than debt, so a bad year is a question about profits, not about lenders.
Net cash · as at Q2 2026 · cash and short-term investments less total debt
- Net debt / EBITDA
- net cash
Net debt / EBITDA · no net borrowings to measure against earnings
- Debt / equity
- 0.28×
Debt / equity
- Annualised volatility
- 47%
Annualised volatility · S&P 500 16% · about 3 times the market's own swing
Details›
- Total debtQ2 2026
- $87M
- Cash and short-term investments
- $223M
- Net cash
- $136M
- EBITDA, trailing twelve months
- $80M
- Operating profit, trailing twelve months
- $64M
- Debt / equity
- 0.28×
- Total debt / EBITDA
- 1.09×
- Annualised volatilitytwo years of daily moves
- 47%
- Worst drawdown on file
- −91%
- Below its 52-week high
- 20%
Balance sheet from SEC filings; drawdown and volatility from end-of-day closes; Altman Z from the filed statements.
The balance sheet
What it owes against what it owns, and how close that comes to trouble.
How far can it fall?
How much the price moves, how deep and how long its falls have run, and what each unit of risk has paid.
Education & Training Services
Ranks #14 of 15 by RyuScore