Shares of Santa Ana-based Corinthian Colleges Inc. rose Tuesday after the company said profits and revenue for the current quarter could come in better than expected as the company cuts jobs and raises fees at its vocational schools.
Corinthian’s shares closed up more than 2% after surging as much as 6% earlier in the day. The company has a market value of $450 million.
For the three months through March, Corinthian projected profits of $16.9 million to $18.6 million, down about 60% from a year earlier.
Wall Street analysts on average had been looking for a profit of $16.9 million for the current quarter.
Corinthian sees revenue of $462 million to $472 million for the quarter, which was down about 3% from a year earlier.
Analysts had been looking for sales of $462.7 million.
Corinthian runs more than 100 campuses in the U.S. and Canada offering degrees in information technology, construction, healthcare and other areas.
The company has about 105,498 students enrolled at its schools. It expects student starts to fall by 15% to 17% in the current quarter.
Corinthian and other for-profit school operators are under fire from regulators for students who graduate with too much debt and limited job prospects.
It and others face new federal regulations that stand to take effect this year and 2012.
The rules stand to limit recruiting efforts and could cut off federally-backed loans to schools that graduate too many students who can’t pay back loans.
In August, an Education Department report cited Corinthian as having one of the lowest student loan repayment rates among publicly traded school operators.
Corinthian plans to raise tuition by 12% in the current and following quarters as part of an effort to meet new federal rules.
The company also plans to cut 4% of its workers, or about 600 people including some 30 locally.
Corinthian employs about 16,800 people, including about 700 in Orange County.
The company is seeing a slowdown in growth that played out in its results for the three months through December, though they exceeded expectations on Wall Street.
Corinthian reported a charge-laden net loss of $163.71 million for the recently ended quarter, versus a profit of $39.4 million a year earlier.
The loss was driven by a $206 million impairment charge, largely from a decline in value of acquired businesses amid regulatory uncertainty.
Excluding the charge, net income was $19.1 million, slightly ahead of the $18.3 million Wall Street was expecting.
Revenue for the December quarter was $482.79 million, up 16% from a year earlier.
Analysts had been looking for sales of $476.28 million.
