Career Education (CECO)

restatement. The increase in revenue is primarily attributable to same-school population growth of 25 percent, and average revenue per student increase of 4 percent. Fourth quarter net income increase, 18 percent to 59.8 million. Our balance sheet is stronger than ever, with cash and cash equivalents of 348.1 million.

Starts in the quarter were approximately 28,600. Our student population on January 31, 2005 was approximately 101,500, up 21 percent compared with approximately 84,100 on January 31st in ‘04. The student population statistics excluded previously disclosed teach outs at our Academy division, but includes our culinary and health care externships. Excluding the Gibbs school, student population was up 27 percent from the previous year.

Total student population at our Online Education Group on January 31st in ‘05 was approximately 24,900, up approximately 12,200 students on the January 31st, ‘04 number. Leads have been abundant and we have been able to generate them at reasonable cost. We’ve also been pleased with the mix of our lead generation. We ended the year generating 5.4 million leads, representing 84 percent year over year growth. Our full year media cost per lead was also flat to prior year.

The retention overall continues to be stable. We implemented several recent initiatives to help us with our retention efforts. The first is a survey called the Career Success Survey that addresses new students’ needs and identifies possible issues that may hinder a student from completing their education. It allows the campus to address the issues in a pro-active approach so that the students’ needs are taken care of as they arise. In addition, we have created retention symposiums for each division to address every aspect as it relates to student satisfaction and quality of their experience. In all of our educational institutions, students complete a survey at the end of their class instruction, evaluating their instructor and the contents of their course. This provides immediate feedback that can analyze — that we can analyze and respond to as appropriate.

In 2004, as in previous years, we invested in our training programs for our CEC employees. We are dedicated to making sure our employees receive the training that they require in all areas of expertise and are constantly updating and refreshing our programs to maximize employee education. We are consistently striving to develop new program opportunities for our existing and prospective students. In the CSU division, we added over 75 new programs in 2004 of which 42 percent were either Bachelor or Masters degree related. We added four additional startup schools in ‘04, in Seattle, Nashville, Las Vegas and Miami culinary. We believe that we have never been better positioned geographically to take advantage of our growing market for both online as well as on site. We’ve also made significant advances in our technology infrastructure, creating people-friendly systems that allow greater accessibility to our employees and to our students.

In the OEG division we began marketing five new programs at AIU and CCU. In addition we designed and developed seven new internet portal sites to market new — new universities. In January OEG opened a new recruitment center in Downers Grove, Illinois. We’re excited to be able to introduce to our world class culinary programs, a new concept of education called Kitchen Academy. Kitchen Academy brings a contemporary hands-on approach to the field with a new value-oriented educational product. The 30 week cooking program competitively priced to compliment CEC’s existing culinary art’s program. This program allows us to target a new market of potential culinary students and will appeal to the student who is looking for a shorter, less rigorous program than our traditional culinary curricula.

In closing I’d like to emphasize the continued dynamic health of our Company. I’m extraordinarily proud of our Company, of our employees and the performance we have had over the past year. This is the year in which all of Career Education should take a lot of pride. Our compliance and integrity structure has never been more vibrant. In 2004, approximately 14,000 CEC employees provided valuable education and training to over 100,000 students. We recognize that not only must we continue to provide high quality, cost and time effective education and training, but we must also continue to dedicate ourselves to being an industry leader in the field of compliance.

Over the last calendar year, we have aggressively pursued and investigated all allegations regarding compliance violations. Where we have found credible evidence of compliance violations we have acted to remedy those violations, be they at the school or corporate level. No one at the Company is above this obligation. Bob McNamara will be speaking to — to each of you shortly about this effort and to further strengthen our compliance activities.

We appreciate your continued support in an effort to ensure that all the issues are clearly understood, we will extend the Q & A session today. With this, I’ll hand it over to Bob McNamara.