LINCOLN EDUCATIONAL SERVICES CORP (LINC) Stock Analysis
LINCOLN EDUCATIONAL SERVICES CORP
▾ What's in the 42/100 risk score? (higher = riskier)
Contributions (weight × component score) sum to the total. This near-term score now includes fundamental health (leverage, FCF trend). It excludes the Altman Z score, whose retained-earnings input this filer does not report separately. See the Financial Health section for the full balance-sheet read.
How to read LINC
We are not publishing an intrinsic value for this one — the section below says exactly why. Everything on this page that comes straight from the filings and the tape is still here; treat the missing valuation as a known gap, not as a verdict on the business.
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1
Reported earnings & margins ↓
What the company actually reported — unaffected by the valuation being held.
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Balance sheet & book value ↓
Assets, liabilities and equity as filed.
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3
Who's selling & betting against it ↓
Insider and short-interest behaviour needs no valuation model.
The share count we read for LINC looks wrong — common for multi-class / founder-controlled filers that report shares per share-class. That makes per-share figures (including intrinsic value) misleading, so we suppressed them. The company's total financials below are sound.
What to use instead: Lean on the totals — revenue, net income, cash flow — and the balance sheet. Multi-class share counts are being corrected; once fixed, the per-share valuation returns automatically.
This note is only about the single DCF fair-value number — LINC's full financial statements, health scores, and written analysis are all below.
Quality & solvency checks
Cheap stocks can be cheap for a reason. These screens warn when a low valuation comes paired with structural fragility.
Why it matters: Cheap-looking stocks (low P/E or P/B) often have low Z-scores because the market knows the company is dying. Z-score warns you before you fall into a value trap.
Reference: > 3.0 = safe zone · 1.81–3.0 = grey zone · < 1.81 = distress zone
Full explanation →
The Z-score needs working capital, retained earnings, EBIT, sales and total assets from the latest balance sheet, and at least one of those isn't reported in machine-readable form here — common for foreign private issuers. We leave it blank rather than compute a distress verdict from an estimated input. It doesn't affect the reported figures in the financial tables below.
▾ The checks — what passed, what didn't (and what we couldn't measure)
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✓ Positive net incomeNet income $20.0M in FY2025.
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✓ Positive operating cash flowOperating cash flow $59.3M (was $29.3M the prior year).
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✓ Cash flow backs up reported profitOperating cash flow $59.3M vs net income $20.0M.
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✓ Return on assets improvingReturn on assets 4.1% vs 2.3% a year ago.
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✓ Debt load (vs assets)The filing reports no interest-bearing debt in either year (total assets $493.2M).
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✗ Short-term liquidity (current ratio)Current ratio 0.86x vs 1.23x a year ago — below 1.0, a caution flag.Why this matters: The current ratio compares assets it can turn to cash within a year against bills due within a year. Below 1.0 means it may struggle to cover near-term obligations.
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✗ Share count (dilution)Share count rose 1.2% (0.0M → 0.0M year-over-year).Why this matters: Issuing lots of new shares splits the pie into more pieces, shrinking your slice. Stable or falling share count protects existing owners.
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· Pricing power (gross margin) (n/a — data not reported; not scored)
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✓ Sales per asset (asset turnover)Asset turnover 1.05x vs 1.01x a year ago.
Missing data is never counted as a pass or a fail — it's shown as n/a and excluded from the denominator. Each check compares the company against its own prior year.
A standard discounted cash flowDCF — Discounted Cash Flow — sums up all future cash a business will produce, adjusted for the fact that future dollars are worth less than dollars today.
Why it matters: It is the most fundamentally honest valuation method when applicable — but only works for companies with predictable, positive cash flow.
Reference: Best for: mature, profitable businesses. Fails for: pre-profit growth, banks, REITs.
Full explanation → (DCF) valuation is not meaningful for Lincoln Educational Services due to a data/units issue that leads to an extreme valuation output, as indicated by the 'Extreme valuation' flag. While the company exhibits positive net income and operating cash flow, its current ratio is below 1, suggesting potential short-term liquidity challenges. Investors are likely focused on the company's consistent revenue growth and profitability, betting on its ability to expand its educational services. The primary quantifiable risk is the current ratio of 0.86, indicating current liabilities exceed liquid assets.
As of 3 months ago
Anatomy of a share
What you're buying per share. Bars are at the same scale so you can see the relative size of revenue, costs, cash flow, and debt — not just read them in a table.
What you actually need to decide
Every stock price is a disagreement. Here's the single thing that must go right for the bulls, the single thing that breaks the thesis, and the concrete signposts to watch so you can update your view as real results arrive.
- Improvement in the current ratio above 1.0
- Continued double-digit revenue growth rates
- Expansion of program offerings or new campus locations
The trend, in plain numbers (FY2024 → FY2025, latest reported)
Straight from the financial statements — no model, no opinion. For a small or unprofitable company, the direction of these numbers usually tells you more than any single valuation.
- Revenue grew +18% to $518.2M.
- Net income grew +102% to $20.0M.
- Free cash flow is negative at -$32.8M — the cash burn widened vs last year.
Management & Leadership
Jeffrey W. Mirvis has served as the President and CEO of Lincoln Educational Services Corporation since 2017. He has been instrumental in guiding the company's strategic direction and operational improvements. Wesly R. Van Den Berg serves as the Chief Financial Officer.
What They Make
Lincoln Educational Services provides post-secondary education and training in various fields, primarily to high school graduates and adult learners seeking career-oriented skills.
End Markets
Revenue Drivers
Why Is It Priced Like This?
Why Customers Pay
What we use instead: earnings (P/E, EV/EBIT), book value (P/B) — computed from the figures this company does report, shown in the sections below. Those numbers are unaffected by the missing cash-flow data.
The market is likely pricing Lincoln Educational Services based on its consistent revenue growth of 11.5% per year and its track record of positive net income and operating cash flow over the last five years. Despite the 'Extreme valuation' flag in the model, these health signals suggest the market sees a stable, growing business. The market may be assigning value to the potential for further expansion in vocational training demand, which is not in the model.
Business Model & Valuation
How They Make Money
Growth / Revenue DCF
Negative free cash flow: revenue/margin growth model used - standard FCF DCF is unreliable for companies still scaling.
Show advanced inputs
| Revenue Growth | 11.5% |
What this model does NOT do: this is a consolidated owner-earnings FCF model. Standalone segment assumptions: none. It does not project its revenue segments independently; their combined effect is embedded in the historical revenue and cash-flow trend the model extrapolates. The calculator above can only approximate a segment's impact through the single consolidated growth rate — it cannot model any one line separately. For a true segment-level view, build a separate model from the company's segment disclosures.
Maturity & Competitive Position
Moat Signals
Revenue is growing at 11.5% per year over the last four years, from $335M to $518M.
Geography & Markets
Lincoln Educational Services primarily operates across the United States, providing career-focused education through its various campuses. Exact geographic segment splits are not available from current data sources.
Geographic Risks
Market Signals
These are timing signals, not value signals — they describe the stock's recent price behavior, not what the business is worth. Use them for the "the thesis looks good, but is now the moment?" question. Each tile below explains what it's saying.
Why it matters: Short-term contrarian indicator. Extreme readings often precede mean reversion, though not always.
Reference: 30–70 normal · >70 overbought · <30 oversold
Full explanation → (14)51.8NeutralMomentum is balanced — neither overbought nor oversold.
Why it matters: When the fast line crosses above the slow line, short-term momentum is turning up; below, turning down. A timing cue, not a value signal.
Reference: Line above signal = bullish momentum · below = bearish
Full explanation →BearishLine below signalThe fast trend is below the slow trend — short-term momentum is currently downward.
Technicals describe price, not the business. A great company can have a "bearish" tape (a buying chance) and a weak one a "bullish" tape (a trap). Pair these with the valuation and health sections above.
QUALITY
Data Quality & Risk Flags (4 notes — click to expand/collapse)
Guardrail Notes (4)
- FCF negative: revenue/margin growth model projects future cash flows from revenue trajectory.
- Illiquidity discount 7% applied (small/micro-cap — harder to exit, demand a margin).
- Extreme valuation (P/IV withheld — see the note above); output dominated by data/units issue (often a multi-class share-count mismatch). Suppressed.
- DATA UNAVAILABLE: per-share values suppressed due to missing/unreliable shares data.
FINANCIALS
Financial Statements (5-year tables — click to expand)
From LINCOLN EDUCATIONAL SERVICES CORP's SEC filings (EDGAR).
Income (5yr)
| Year | Revenue | Net Income | EPS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 518.2M | 20.0M | $0.64 |
| 2024 | 440.1M | 9.9M | $0.32 |
| 2023 | 378.1M | 26.0M | $0.85 |
| 2022 | 348.3M | 12.6M | $0.36 |
| 2021 | 335.3M | 34.7M | $1.04 |
Cash Flow (5yr)
| Year | Operating CF | CapEx | − SBC & adj. | Free Cash Flow |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 59.3M | 86.6M | 5.5M | -32.8M |
| 2024 | 29.3M | 56.9M | 4.6M | -32.2M |
| 2023 | 25.6M | 40.7M | 5.9M | -21.0M |
| 2022 | 882,000 | 9.0M | 3.1M | -11.2M |
| 2021 | 27.4M | 7.5M | 2.9M | 17.0M |
How we define FCF: operating cash flow − capital expenditure − stock-based compensation (owner-earnings basis — SBC is a real cost to shareholders even though it's non-cash). Latest year: 59.3M − 86.6M − 5.5M (SBC & adj.) = -32.8M. This is the same owner-earnings FCF definition the valuation model uses, though the DCF's starting value is a projected from revenue × terminal margin, not this single year.
Balance Sheet
| Total Assets | 493.2M |
| Total Liabilities | 293.5M |
| Equity | 199.7M |
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