Private Career Colleges Are North America's Most Undervalued Acquisition Opportunity. Here's What Serious Buyers Need to Know
Halladay Education Group | North America's Private Education M&A Specialists buyingandsellingschools.com | halladayeducationgroup.com
Most investors seeking acquisitions in healthcare services, business services, or professional training overlook an asset class sitting directly at the intersection of all three: the private career college.
It is no coincidence that sophisticated buyers — private equity groups, strategic operators, and individual investors with education-sector experience — are quietly increasing their activity in this space. Canada alone is projected to face a shortage of approximately 117,600 nurses by 2030, driven by retirements, burnout, and an aging population. That is, before accounting for the allied health, personal support, and healthcare administration roles that sit squarely within the program mix of most private career colleges. The US faces a projected shortage of more than 124,000 physicians by 2034 if no increases are made to residency positions, and supporting healthcare workers trained at the career college level are in even shorter supply.
The demand signal is structural, not cyclical. And the acquisition market for the institutions that train those workers remains, for now, significantly under-priced relative to the underlying fundamentals.
At Halladay Education Group (HEG), we have advised on the confidential sale, acquisition, and merger of private schools and career colleges across Canada and the United States for years. We have closed transactions in healthcare training, esthetics and wellness, business programs, media arts, culinary, flight training, ESL, K-12, and boarding schools. This is what most first-time buyers entering this market do not know.
The Asset Class That Institutional Capital Keeps Discovering
Private career colleges are recurring-revenue businesses with defensible enrollment pipelines, government-recognized credential programs, and — in the best cases — contracted employer relationships that function as a near-standing order for graduates.
As of mid-2025, PE-led acquisitions accounted for just over 34% of global M&A transactions but represented 42.4% of total deal value, with private equity buyers paying an average EV/EBITDA multiple of 10.1x compared to 8.6x for corporate acquirers. Educated buyers in the education sector understand why: a well-run career college with stable enrollment, regulated programs, and accredited credentials is precisely the kind of defensible, margin-resilient business that justifies premium entry pricing.
The opportunity for strategic buyers — those with operational knowledge of the education sector — is to acquire ahead of that institutional re-rating, while quality assets are still transacting at multiples that reflect private market pricing rather than the PE-grade valuations that follow once a sector attracts sustained fund attention.
What You Are Actually Buying
Before evaluating any specific acquisition target, buyers need clarity on what drives value in a private career college — and what destroys it.
Enrollment stability and trajectory are the primary value drivers. A school with consistent year-over-year enrollment growth, strong retention through program completion, and documented graduate employment outcomes commands a material premium over one with enrollment volatility, even if EBITDA is comparable in a given year. In our advisory practice, we routinely see buyers overpay for headline EBITDA without adequately stress-testing the enrollment assumptions underneath it.
Regulatory standing is non-negotiable. Every private career college in Canada and the US operates under a provincial or state licensing framework and, in many cases, under federal student assistance eligibility rules. A school with a compliance issue — even a historical one — carries tail risk that must be identified and priced in due diligence, not discovered post-closing. This is one of the areas where an advisor with sector-specific experience most directly protects a buyer's capital.
Program mix and market demand alignment determine the ceiling. The demand for healthcare professionals in Canada is projected to rise steadily, driven by aging populations, increased chronic conditions, and expanded healthcare services — creating high demand for nurses, personal support workers, allied health professionals, and specialized clinicians. Schools with healthcare support, allied health, and personal care programs in their core offerings are structurally better positioned than those that depend solely on business administration or general studies enrollment.
Accreditation and credential recognition affect both students' access to funding and institutions' exit value. Schools that carry national accreditation — through bodies such as NACC in Canada or ACCSC in the US — are more fundable, more defensible, and more attractive to a broader buyer pool at exit.
Lease structure and physical campus are frequently underweighted in early buyer analysis. A school operating on a long-term, below-market lease in a high-traffic location has a different risk profile than one approaching a lease renewal in a tightening commercial real estate market. We review lease terms as a core component of every transaction we manage.
The Five Structures Every Buyer Should Understand
How you acquire and hold a private career college shapes everything from your financing structure to your exit timeline. The most common models in the market are:
Direct acquisition and operation. You own the institution and take on full operational accountability — staffing, regulatory compliance, curriculum, and financial performance. Maximum control and return potential. Requires either a strong in-house education management capability or a trusted operational partner installed at closing.
Property and operations separation (PropCo/OpCo). The campus real estate is owned separately from the operating entity. This structure is increasingly common among institutional buyers seeking to participate in the sector's fundamentals while maintaining a cleaner separation between real estate returns and operating risk.
Platform acquisition with an add-on strategy. You acquire an established institution with strong regulatory standing and management infrastructure, then grow through geographic expansion or program diversification — organically or through further acquisitions. This is the model driving most of the PE-backed consolidation activity in the sector.
Asset purchase versus share purchase. The structure of the transaction itself — whether you are buying shares in the corporate entity or acquiring specified assets — has material tax, liability, and regulatory implications that vary by province and state. Getting this right at the letter-of-intent stage, rather than negotiating it mid-due diligence, is where HEG's advisory experience consistently adds value.
Joint venture with an operator. You bring the capital; an experienced education operator brings the management infrastructure. Increasingly used by investors who want exposure to the sector's fundamentals without building an internal education management function from the ground up.
What Realistic Financial Performance Looks Like
Buyers entering this sector from adjacent industries sometimes arrive with return expectations calibrated to the faster-cycling businesses of those industries. Private career colleges reward patient capital structured around education's enrollment rhythms.
Acquiring an established, operating institution — rather than a startup — compresses the timeline considerably. A performing school at acquisition generates revenue from day one. The buyer's job is to protect enrollment through the transition, execute on any identified operational improvements, and either grow the platform or position it for a premium exit.
Valuation multiples for transactions between $100 million and $250 million rose to 10.0x EBITDA in the first half of 2025, up from 8.5x in 2024, reflecting increased investor interest in defensible, margin-resilient businesses. Smaller transactions in the education sector — which describes most career college acquisitions — have been comparably stable, with quality assets in growth programs consistently attracting competitive buyer processes when professionally marketed.
Exit planning is a legitimate consideration from day one, not an afterthought. The buyers most active in this space — strategic operators, family offices, and increasingly PE-backed platforms — are specifically seeking well-documented, cleanly structured institutions. The sellers who achieve the strongest outcomes are those who have invested in clean financial records, resolved any compliance exposures, and engaged an advisor experienced enough to run a competitive process.
What Due Diligence Actually Requires
Education sector due diligence is materially different from a standard business acquisition review. Buyers who apply a generic commercial due diligence framework to a private career college acquisition consistently miss the issues that matter most.
Beyond standard financial and legal review, a rigorous education sector due diligence process covers enrollment quality and retention data, program-level EBITDA contribution, accreditation and licensing history, regulatory correspondence with provincial or state oversight bodies, student assistance eligibility status, instructor qualification and retention, curriculum ownership and accreditation documentation, and lease and campus condition assessment.
At HEG, we prepare our seller clients for exactly this level of scrutiny before going to market. Schools that arrive at the due diligence stage well-documented close faster, attract stronger offers, and generate fewer post-closing disputes. That discipline protects both sides of the transaction.
Why Sector-Specific Advisory Matters
The private education M&A market is neither large nor active enough to support generalist advisory work at the quality level required for transactions in this sector. Regulatory nuance, enrollment modelling, accreditation implications, and program-level valuation all require a depth of sector knowledge that a generalist M&A advisor — however capable in other industries — does not bring.
Halladay Education Group was built specifically for this market. We represent owners and operators of private schools and career colleges — K-12, boarding, ESL, vocational, healthcare training, and post-secondary — in confidential sale, acquisition, and merger transactions across Canada and the United States. We know the buyers, we know the assets, and we know the difference between a school positioned for a premium outcome and one that needs work before going to market.
If you are an investor evaluating an acquisition in the private education sector, or a school owner considering your exit options, we would welcome a confidential conversation.
Halladay Education Group North America's Private Education M&A Specialists
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