The EdSheet Vol. 26

This newsletter covers the business side of the education industry - venture funding, M&A, other financial transactions. Whiteboard Advisors also publishes a daily newsletter - What We’re Reading - of curated, industry-focused news clips and a weekly newsletter - Whiteboard Notes - which covers policy, industry trends, and insights from W/A CEO Ben Wallerstein.

Hello! 

Final call to provide thoughts on this year in the education industry as I prepare my 5th annual year-in-review (2021 part 1 & 2, 2022, 2023, and 2024). To do so, hit reply and/or fill out this 2025 end-of-year survey.

In this week’s edition:

• Big week for M&A: Coursera’s merger with Udemy drove much of the attention, but it was also a banner week for the simulations industry with the merger of Skillwell and Realizeit. 

• A groundbreaking transaction fuels the financialization of college sports: the dam finally broke on private equity’s entrance to the world of college sports, with Otro Capital signing a $100M+ deal with the University of Utah (the school may raise as much as $500M in the transaction).

• ED closes the year with a bang: Coming to a consensus on Workforce Pell rules and labelling more than 1,300 institutions as “lower earnings.”  

• Healthcare career “ladder” may be shakier than we make it out to be: Healthcare is often held up as the example industry for stackable credentials, with a clear path from entry-level jobs to higher wage careers. A new study suggests that while the path may be clear, surprisingly few healthcare workers actually follow it.

Looking forward to hearing from you, onto the news!

Funding / M&A

Whiteboard Advisors not only provides policy and market-related diligence and advisory services, we track every financial transaction that happens in education — and keep a record of all deals that are publicly announced.

The following transactions caught our eye over the past few weeks. If you have a deal to announce, or would like access to the full transactions database, please reach out.

Venture Funding

• Parallel raises $20M / US, Special Education / Valspring Capital, Rethink Impact

• Oboe raises $16M / US, Content Platform (Instructional Design) / A16Z, Eniac, Haystack, Offline, Factorial

• Luca raises $8M / Mexico, Content Provider (Instructional Design) / 6 Degrees Capital, Explorer, Heartcore Capital, Shilling VC

• Edailabs raises €5M / France, Language Learning / Educapital, Breega, Yellow Ventures, Seedcamp, DMG Ventures

M&A

• Coursera acquires Udemy / US, Content Platform

• Skillwell merges with Realizeit / US (Ireland), Simulations

  • For more on this transaction and the future of simulations, check out my conversation with Skillwell CEO Phill Miller.

• Otus acquires Mindprint Learning / US, Assessment

• School Specialty acquires Nasco Education / US, K12 School Infrastructure

• Tyler Technologies acquires Edulink / US, K12 Software Infrastructure (ERP)

Buyouts

• Otro Capital agrees to $100M+ equity purchase and revenue share agreement with the University of Utah Athletic Department. Headlines called this deal a $500M agreement, but that number also includes a carveout for University of Utah boosters to buy into the deal. I expect most major college football programs will find a financial partner to support operations in the next 2-3 years. Most of these partners will be private equity firms, though at least the University of California is exploring large-scale institutional investment.  

What’s on your Whiteboard? CEO Perspectives

• Skillwell CEO Phill Miller discusses his plans for the company post-merger with Realizeit.

• Pearl CEO John Failla and I discuss the state of the US K12 tutoring market after the release of their 2025 report (co-authored with W/A) on the topic.

News of Note

This section is intended to be more exploratory, a reflection of stories, ideas, and trends that I think are important for EdTech executives and investors to be aware of. 

Early Childhood

• Are apprenticeships the key to supporting a more sustainable early childhood workforce? A deep dive into San Francisco’s early childhood educator apprenticeship program.

• More states, both red and blue, are experimenting with early childhood (0-preK) subsidies. This trend is rooted in economics - the market rate for childcare provides poor wages for staff and costs as much as rent for many families, leaving both sides unsatisfied with private childcare options. 

  • These state experiments are exciting. However, they are also providing their own lessons in economics to policymakers. In California, the effect of the TK for All initiative - which provides a free, public childcare option for 4 year-olds - may result in a net loss of childcare seats in the state. LA has already seen 167 private childcare facilities close, with many owners citing the loss of their most lucrative students (4 year-olds can be staffed at a 12:1 ratio whereas the ratio for infants is 3:1) as the reason for closing.  

K12

• Apropos of experiments in state subsidies for education, California’s ‘Teacher Village’ model spreads as housing costs soar. Dedicated housing for teachers feels like a noble cause, but the additional financial complexity for school leaders concerns me. This week, we learned that superintendents already feel overwhelmed and undertrained for managing school finances.

• Is more training, for teachers and/or school leaders, the answer? Probably, but probably not a Master’s in Education (at least as they are currently constituted). From the Institute of Education Sciences, there was “no statistically significant relationship between student test scores and the content of the teacher’s training, including the number of required hours of math pedagogy, reading/language arts pedagogy or fieldwork.”

• We gave students laptops and took away their brains. On principle, I struggle with any piece that celebrates luddites, but this one received a lot of attention this week. 

• Instead, I prefer reports on the pros and cons of technology based on observations from classrooms. Something Amplify’s Dan Meyer is consistently good at and which Edmentum’s Jamie Candee reflected on this week. 

Higher Ed

• Lots of news from ED this week, headlined by their labelling of 1,365 of institutions as “lower earnings” and the AHEAD committee coming to a consensus on Workforce Pell rules in negotiated rulemaking.

  • Of note, there is an extremely clear trend to the institutions who received the “lower earnings” label: 80% were for-profit, certificate-granting institutions. 

• Not breaking news this week, but also ED-related: Grad programs brace for loan caps. Lots of smoke about how OBBBA’s caps on Grad- and Parent-Plus loans will affect enrollments, but still hard to predict exactly what will happen here.

  • These enrollment concerns also need to be reconciled with the $1.7T in US student loan debt (whose volume growth correlates very closely with the “Plus” era of loans) and 12M borrowers who are behind on their payments in some way.

• Sort of related, in that schools have had to adapt to a changing set of admissions criteria to sustain enrollments: Elite colleges have moved to prioritize economic diversity in admissions.

  • Apropos of changes at elite institutions, Columbia considers expanding undergraduate enrollment by up to 20%.

• A reminder that surveys should, generally, be taken with a grain of salt. The American Association of Colleges and Universities says 85% of employers believe colleges and universities are adequately preparing students for the workforce. Deloitte reports 66% of employers say recent grads are not prepared for the workforce. 

  • One way to ensure students are better prepared for the workforce? Provide more jobs, especially jobs with significant professional responsibility, to students while they are on campus.

Workforce

• The healthcare career “ladder” may be shakier than we make it out to be. “A study of federal grants for CNA training showed that only 3% of those who completed the training went on to pursue further education to become an LPN or RN. Only 1% obtained an associate degree or above. A similar study in California showed that 22% of people who completed CNA certificate programs at community colleges went on to get a higher-level educational credential in health, but only 13% became registered nurses within six years.”

Looking for your next opportunity in education? Check out our W/A Jobs, which features 3,648 career opportunities from 304 organizations across the education industry. A few roles that we’re excited about from the past week:

• Coursedog is hiring a Contract Operations Manager to define and lead their commercial contracts process

• Clever is hiring a Chief Revenue Officer to lead the organization go-to-market function

• Manifest is hiring a Growth Marketing Manager to execute on the organization’s marketing initiatives across lifecycle, CRM, content, and social

Whiteboard Advisors is the leading policy-related diligence partner for education investors, advising on most major private equity transactions in education over the past 15 years. Our specialty is translating complex policy dynamics into insights that inform decision-making. Reply to this email to learn more.