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TickerSTRA
SectorEducation & Training Services
Mkt cap$1.8B
EV / EBITDA7.8×
PostureHigh Velocity
Composite70/100
LensTarget-side
SE-Cluster Research·Issuer Brief·Q2 2026CIK 1013934

Strategic Education, Inc.

STRAHIGH VELOCITYFILING INTENSITY

Strategic Education, Inc. reads as High Velocity (composite 70/100); pressure / disclosure signals dominate the posture this cycle · primary market Media & Education, ranked #11 on disclosed spend.

Lens

Disclosed M&A capital (2023–2025)

$1M

−99%

vs $1.9B in 2020–2022

Disclosed transactions

N/A

−99%

2/3 active fiscal years in window

Buyer archetype

Consistent Strategic Buyer

Meaningful spend appears across repeat years.

Composite score

70

/100

High Velocity dominates · Filing Intensity

Financial snapshot
Revenue$1.3B
EBITDA$230M
Enterprise value$1.8B
EV / Revenue1.4×
EV / EBITDA7.8×
P/EN/A
Cash$150M
Total debtN/A
as of 2026-05-10
§ I·SE-Cluster Issuer Brief

Behavioral posture, nine reads.

Each index scores the issuer 0–100 against an EDGAR-anchored definition. Scores ≥ threshold elevate the issuer into the index's constituent set; the dominant index drives the masthead label.

Active Acquirer

37/100

Companies actively deploying disclosed capital into M&A

  • $2B disclosed buyer spend

Buyer Cadence

18/100

Buyer-side companies with recent filing activity

  • Filed within 33d
  • 185 8-Ks

Target Probability

20/100

Issuers showing target-side patterns from filings

  • 30 activism filings

Spin/Carve

0/100

Issuers showing spin-off, carve-out, or sum-of-parts posture

  • 30 activism filings

Pressure Watch

42/100

Issuers facing activism, governance, or control pressure

  • 30 activism filings
  • Latest activism 2y ago; discounted

Distress Watch

18/100

Issuers showing financial-distress filing patterns

  • 30 activism filings

Restatement Risk

13/100

Issuers with accounting-integrity flags from filings

  • 1 auditor change
  • Latest event 1.2y ago

Capital Velocity

Dominant
70/100

Issuers with the highest filing-activity intensity

  • 185 8-Ks
  • 5 form types

Quiet Power

0/100

Large issuers with low signal volume and clean disclosure cadence

  • Enterprise value $1.8B
  • 10-Q 33d ago
  • 3 active signals
§ II·SE-Cluster Issuer Brief

Capital cadence.

Ten-year disclosed M&A activity. Bars show spend ($MM); ticks show recorded transaction count. Disclosure tier annotated where v6 audited corpus carries an entry.

16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25

Disclosed spend $MM Disclosed transactions (right axis)Peak spend year: $658M · Peak count: 1

FYDisclosed buysDisclosed spendAvg ticketAudited tier
2025N/A$500KN/AN/A
2024N/A$800KN/AN/A
2023N/AN/AN/AN/A
2022N/A$629MN/AN/A
20211$658M$658MN/A
20201$658M$658MN/A
§ III·SE-Cluster Issuer Brief

Strategy posture.

The buyer's playbook in terms of strategic archetype: what each disclosed move says about how they're deploying capital.

Archetype mix

  • Platform
    50%
  • Geographic Expansion
    50%

Strategy keywords

Terms recurring across recent 10-K acquisition disclosures.

  • platform
  • geographic_expansion
  • horizontal_consolidation
§ IV·SE-Cluster Issuer Brief

Filing language.

Direct excerpts from acquisition disclosures and strategy sections: the verbs the buyer chose, in the filings they signed.

The Acquisition supports the Company’s strategy to leverage current resources and capabilities to grow into new high demand sectors of the education marketplace.

10-KFY2016

The Acquisition supports the Company’s strategy to complement its traditional degree offerings with a broader platform of educational services.

10-KFY2017

ANZ provides an attractive platform for future growth, driven by Australia’s status as an attractive destination for international students

10-KFY2020

potential to use ANZ as a platform for expansion across the ASEAN region

10-KFY2020
§ V·SE-Cluster Issuer Brief

Market context.

Where this issuer sits inside its SE-Cluster rollup wedge, with disclosed-spend rank plus trading comparables against the public peer set.

Primary market

Media & Education

Market spend (2023–2025)
$31.8B
Market spend (2020–2022)
$74.8B
Recent vs prior
−57%
Issuer rank in market
#11 of 114
Share of market capital
1.0%

Valuation positioning

7.8×EV / EBITDA

STRA trades at a -4.3-turn discount to the Media & Education peer median of 12.1×.

EV / Revenue
1.4×
Net debt / EBITDA
N/A
Peer median EV / EBITDA
12.1×

Trading comparables

FMP market data · 2026-05-10

CompanyEV / EBITDAEV / RevNet debt / EBITDARevenueM&A 2023–2025
21.6×2.0×-0.2×$8.8B$55M
19.2×1.5×-3.6×$25.6B$196M
Strategic Education, Inc.STRA
7.8×1.4×N/A$1.3B$1M
4.9×1.8×2.2×$37.2B$100M
3.0×0.2×14.1×$2.1B$14M

Trading multiples from FMP market data; disclosed M&A spend from the SE-Cluster EDGAR 10-K corpus. Peer set = top disclosed buyers in Media & Education. Bars scaled to the highest EV/EBITDA in the set.

§ VI·SE-Cluster Issuer Brief

Buyer landscape.

Public buyers whose stated archetypes, target categories, and recent cadence align with this issuer as a plausible acquisition target. Scores cross EDGAR signal and disclosure overlap.

Likely buyers

No public buyers surface as a strong target-side fit on current signal.

Likely sellers / divestiture partners

No reciprocal divestiture / strategic-alternatives matches identified.

§ VII·SE-Cluster Issuer Brief

Filing activity & signal stream.

Filing cadence and event-driven signals visible on EDGAR. The signal stream below is curated from restatement / spin-carve / activism categories, providing context for any near-term call.

Filing cadence

  • 10-K (annual)292026-02-27
  • 10-Q (quarterly)912026-04-23
  • 8-K (event)1852026-04-23
  • Proxy / DEF 14A452026-03-11
  • Activism (13D / DFAN / PREC)302024-05-24

Signals on file

  • elevated

    Auditor change

    2025-03-03

    1 Item 4.01 filing on file; certifying accountant change.

  • elevated

    Activism on file

    2024-05-24

    30 activist filings on file (13D, DFAN14A, PREC14A series).

  • info

    Signal

    Serial acquisition history

  • info

    Signal

    10-K strategy themes

  • info

    Signal

    Restatement risk

§ VIII·SE-Cluster Issuer Brief

Audited corpus.

No audited record on file for this CIK in the current v6 corpus.

This issuer has not been extracted into the v6 audited acquirer corpus yet. The brief above pulls from ranking-level aggregates and issuer-index signal only.

Strategic Education, Inc.: Issuer Brief | SE-Cluster