Forensic Analysis · Professional & Commercial Services · as of Aug 11, 2026

Grand Canyon Education, Inc. (LOPE)

A forensic read on Grand Canyon Education, Inc. built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.

D · Weak — demands caution

Forensic grade

Safe

Financial health

25.1

Distress distance

Clean

Earnings quality

Forensic signals

17.6

P / E (ttm)

28.9%

ROE

$3.9B

Market cap

7.1%

Revenue growth

This free snapshot doesn't read filing or proxy text, so the auditor-quality and governance checks that can lower a grade were not evaluated (red flags, auditor quality, say on pay, board independence). Those checks only ever lower a grade, so the full analysis can land below the grade above but never above it — treat it as the most favourable reading, not the settled one.

Grand Canyon Education, Inc. earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 25.1, placing it in the Safe zone. 2 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by accruals ratio (% of noa).

What the filings flag

+32.2%

FY2024→FY2025

Accruals ratio (% of NOA). Net operating assets grew +32.2% relative to their own average in FY2025 — scaled by NOA itself, not total assets (see the Forensic Screens card's differently-scaled Sloan Accrual Ratio for that read). Accruals are building sharply — a large slice of profit sits in operating assets, not cash; Richardson/Sloan link high accruals to weaker future returns as they reverse. The build is led by payables paid down 9% against +7% in revenue. The cash-flow cross-check is more mixed: reported earnings ran behind operating cash by 10% of net operating assets, diverging from the balance-sheet accrual read.

111% of FCF

FY2025

Shareholder returns. Returned $265M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025 — 111% of free cash flow. More than free cash flow generated — and beyond operating cash too, so the extra is coming from debt or cash reserves, which isn't sustainable indefinitely. Counting the $14M of stock-based comp paid out in shares on top of that, the combined claim on free cash flow is 117%.

Key fundamentals

Latest Revenue$1.11B

Revenue Growth YoY+7.1%

Revenue CAGR (3yr)+6.7%

Net Margin19.5%

Free Cash Flow$238.6M

Return on Equity28.9%

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Data from SEC EDGAR public filings · metrics as of Aug 11, 2026. Forensic signals flag probability, not certainty.