AMERICAN PUBLIC EDUCATION INC

To the Stockholders and the Board of Directors of American Public Education, Inc.

Opinion on the Financial Statements

We have audited the accompanying consolidated balance sheets of American Public Education, Inc. and subsidiaries (the "Company") as of December 31, 2025 and 2024, the related consolidated statements of income, comprehensive income, stockholders' equity, and cash flows, for each of the three years in the period ended December 31, 2025, and the related notes and the schedule listed in the Index at Item 15(c) (collectively referred to as the "financial statements"). In our opinion, the financial statements present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of the Company as of December 31, 2025 and 2024, and the results of its operations and its cash flows for each of the three years in the period ended December 31, 2025, in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America.

We have also audited, in accordance with the standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States) (PCAOB), the Company's internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2025, based on criteria established in Internal Control — Integrated Framework (2013) issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission and our report dated March 12, 2026, expressed an unqualified opinion on the Company's internal control over financial reporting.

Basis for Opinion

These financial statements are the responsibility of the Company's management. Our responsibility is to express an opinion on the Company's financial statements based on our audits. We are a public accounting firm registered with the PCAOB and are required to be independent with respect to the Company in accordance with the U.S. federal securities laws and the applicable rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the PCAOB.

We conducted our audits in accordance with the standards of the PCAOB. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements are free of material misstatement, whether due to error or fraud. Our audits included performing procedures to assess the risks of material misstatement of the financial statements, whether due to error or fraud, and performing procedures that respond to those risks. Such procedures included examining, on a test basis, evidence regarding the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements. Our audits also included evaluating the accounting principles used and significant estimates made by management, as well as evaluating the overall presentation of the financial statements. We believe that our audits provide a reasonable basis for our opinion.

Critical Audit Matter

The critical audit matter communicated below is a matter arising from the current-period audit of the financial statements that was communicated or required to be communicated to the audit committee and that (1) relates to accounts or disclosures that are material to the financial statements and (2) involved our especially challenging, subjective, or complex judgments. The communication of critical audit matters does not alter in any way our opinion on the financial statements, taken as a whole, and we are not, by communicating the critical audit matter below, providing a separate opinion on the critical audit matter or on the accounts or disclosures to which it relates.

Goodwill and Intangible Assets — Rasmussen University Reporting Unit — Refer to Notes 2 and 6 to the financial statements.

Critical Audit Matter Description

In connection with the Company’s September 1, 2021, acquisition of Rasmussen University (“RU”), the Company recorded $217.4 million of goodwill, representing the excess of the purchase price over the amount assigned to new assets acquired, and indefinite-lived intangible assets with an initial fair value of $51.0 million. During the fiscal year ended December 31, 2022, the Company recorded non-cash impairment charges of $131.4 million and $15.5 million, reducing the carrying values of the RU goodwill and indefinite-lived intangible assets to $86.0 million and $35.5 million, respectively. During December 31, 2023, the Company recorded non-cash impairment charges of $53 million and $11 million, reducing the carrying values of RU goodwill and indefinite-lived intangible assets to $33.0 million and $24.5 million, respectively.

The Company annually assesses goodwill and indefinite-lived intangible assets, or more frequently if events and circumstances indicate that the estimated fair value may no longer exceed its carrying value. Such factors considered in the Company’s assessment include, but are not limited to, enrollment trends, financial performance, macroeconomic conditions, regulatory environment, as well as industry and market considerations. When a quantitative impairment test is performed, if the fair value of the reporting unit or indefinite-lived intangible assets is less than its carrying amount, an impairment loss is recorded for the excess of the carrying value over the fair value.

During the fourth quarter of 2025, the Company completed their annual assessment of goodwill and indefinite-lived intangibles for the RU reporting unit. The annual assessment concluded that the fair value of goodwill and indefinite-lived intangibles for RU exceeded their carrying value, thereby resulting in no impairment loss.

Given the significant estimates and assumptions made by management to estimate the fair value of the RU reporting unit, including the fair value of indefinite-lived intangible assets, and the sensitivity of the estimated fair value to changes in those estimates and assumptions, performing audit procedures to evaluate the reasonableness of management's estimates and assumptions utilized in its impairment assessment, particularly the prospective financial information, growth rates, terminal value, discount rates, comparable multiples from publicly traded companies in the higher education market, forecasts of future revenue, the EBITDA margin, and the selection of the royalty rate, required a high degree of auditor judgment and an increased extent of effort, including the need to involve fair value specialists.

How the Critical Audit Matter Was Addressed in the Audit

Our audit procedures included evaluating management's fair value estimate and significant assumptions, forecasts of future revenue, EBITDA margin, discount rate and royalty rate used by management were reasonable considering (i) the current and past performance of the reporting unit, (ii) the consistency with external market and industry data, and (iii) whether these assumptions were consistent with evidence obtained in other areas of the audit. Our audit procedures related to the revenue projections, EBITDA margin, discount rate and royalty rate included the following, among others:

•We tested the effectiveness of controls over management’s goodwill and indefinite-live intangible assets impairment evaluation, including those over the determination of the fair value of the RU reporting unit, such as controls related to management’s forecasts of future revenues, EBITDA margin, the selection of the discount rate and selection of the royalty rate.

•We evaluated the reasonableness of management’s revenue and EBITDA margin forecasts by comparing management’s forecasts to:

◦historical results;

◦prior forecasts;

◦internal communications to the Company’s management and the board of directors; and

◦forecasted information included in the Company’s press releases as well as in analyst and industry reports of the Company and companies in its peer group.

•We considered the impact of changes in the regulatory environment on management’s forecasts, as well as the Company’s historical enrollments and revenues.

•We evaluated the impact of changes in management’s forecasts from the previous annual impairment test date of October 31, 2024, and the annual impairment test date of October 31, 2025.

•With the assistance of our fair value specialists, we evaluated the reasonableness of the valuation methodology, discount rate, long term growth rate, comparable multiples from publicly traded companies in the higher education market and royalty rates used by testing the underlying source information, the mathematical accuracy of the calculations, and developing a range of independent estimates and comparing those to the discount rate and royalty rate selected by management.

•We evaluated the work of management’s expert as audit evidence and assessed the level of knowledge, skill, and ability of the expert in the particular field.

•We compared the carrying value for the reporting unit and indefinite-lived intangible assets to amounts recorded by the Company.

/s/Deloitte & Touche LLP

McLean, Virginia

March 12, 2026

We have served as the Company's auditor since 2018.