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Company Description-

2U Inc. (TWOU) is a company that offers technologically based online classes while partnering with some of the best colleges and universities in the world. They are a relatively new company and were founded in 2008 by a team consisting of education professionals and technology people. They use cloud based software as a service platform in order to make their online classes interactive and discussion based. They believe that by brining students together on the cloud during classes, they can initiate deeper thinking during online classes and lead to a stronger form of online learning. Even though they have been in operation since 2008, they only recently became public and had their IPO on March 28th.

What are these online programs and what differentiates them from competition?-

Nearly every school offers online courses and classes to its students and numerous other companies offer simple online classes if you want to get classes done and out of the way. So what makes 2U better? 2U prides itself on its relationship with universities, its usage of new technology and cloud platforms, and its ability to bring interesting and challenging classes to students. First off, 2U partners with well-known educational institutions such as UNC, Notre Dame, University of Washington St. Louis, and Boston College. In partnering with these universities, the online classes that 2U offers, are the same courses that are taught at these universities. When students take a UNC class with 2U, they take the same course taught at UNC and even are taught by the exact same UNC professor. This gives students the chance to take an interesting highly accredited course from a highly educated and renowned teacher. Besides the interesting course, students also have a chance to take advantage of the company’s innovative use of technology. Students log into an online platform using video cameras and microphones and are placed in an online classroom with their fellow classmates and teachers also on camera. This gives the advantage of making the classes interactive and discussion based as compared to traditional online classes. By making it interactive, 2U gives the students the chance to discuss and learn more like they would in an actual in classroom course. This also allows the student to challenge themselves more and really put their brain to use in discussing these interesting subjects with others in the class.

Stock Analysis –

Since their initial IPO offering at $13, rose to about $15.50 before falling back towards the $13 mark. So what does 2U’s future hold? At this point it is relatively hard to say. Because they have only recently become public, there is not a whole lot of financial data out there for the company and stockholders are still struggling at this point to look into their future and see what it holds financially. Because they are relatively new they are putting a lot of money into R&D costs and are doing all they can to utilize their technology to make their cloud based platform attractive and easy to use. Because of their lack of financial data it is rather difficult to give the company a rating at this point. They are a highly innovative company and have seen decent growth within the last couple of years but are still a relatively new company. However, with the explosion of the online education market, 2U has a lot of growth opportunities available if they should be able to keep on expanding and improving. At this point I would rate the company a hold based on their lack of financial data and relatively new stake in the public markets. However, I believe that they are a company that has high potential and can use their innovation using technology to really propel themselves to great heights. Investors should keep a keen eye on this company as they have the potential to really make something great out of themselves.

Summary-

2U’s use of innovative technology in offering cloud-based classes combined with their partnership with highly accredited universities is helping to establish them as a top-notch online education company. Their ability to differentiate from their competition shows that they have the ability to stand out in an increasingly saturated market and will continue to do so. Although there is not much financial data available on the company at the moment, they have a lot of promise in their future and have the potential to explode forward as a stock and as a company. They may not be a huge name at the current time, but if the company continues to innovate and establish itself within the educational world, they have the chance to be a very successful company and take a large percentage of the market share within the online education market.

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