Better Health for All

Hondros College of Nursing, an institution owned by APEI, provides nursing programs.

However, its 2020 cohort graduation rate was 19% overall, with 16% for Pell Grant and Subsidized Loan recipients. The Fall 2022 retention rate was 8%. These low rates indicate minimal effectiveness in strengthening healthcare workforce capacity and limited impact on health literacy and public health education.

Fair Money & Economic Opportunity

American Public Education, Inc. (APEI) is a provider of online and on-ground post-secondary education, not a financial institution that offers lending or deposit services to consumers. The ethical value 'Fair Money & Economic Opportunity' primarily covers activities related to lending, insuring, moving, or storing money. As APEI's core business does not involve these financial services, most KPIs within this value are not applicable. There is no evidence of APRs, fee structures for consumer credit products, revenue from high-cost financial products, or direct impact on customer credit or savings outcomes.

Therefore, KPIs such as pricing_fairness, exploitative_fee_exposure, fair_lending_compliance, wealth_building_outcome, debt_burden_ratio, and product_simplicity cannot be scored based on the provided rubric and company context. Similarly, there is no evidence of specific profit reinvestment in community finance or profit-sharing with underserved communities, nor does the company operate financial service access points, making profit_reinvestment and geographic_inclusion unscorable. While APEI provides education to specific communities and offers financial literacy curriculum through a related non-profit, the evidence does not provide the quantitative data required by the rubric for underserved_client_share, inclusion_initiatives, data_accessibility, or financial_literacy_initiatives.

Fair Pay & Worker Respect

The company's worker engagement score, based on an Indeed Work Culture Rating as of April 10, 2025, is 2.0 out of 5, which translates to 40%.

This aligns with the -60 tier in the rubric. An overall rating of 2.9 out of 5 (58%) was also reported on Indeed as of the same date, and a Glassdoor overall rating of 3.3 stars (66%) was noted in an article dated February 2026. Qualitative feedback from Indeed mentions "very low job satisfaction" and "LOTS of turnover due to unhappy employees." For health insurance coverage, multiple reviews on Glassdoor mention "Good benefits," and an article from LinkedIn states "Employee Benefits" as a primary area of support, but no specific percentage of coverage is provided. The company states it is an equal opportunity employer and promotes safety procedures. No concrete quantitative data is available for living wage coverage, CEO to median pay ratio, collective bargaining share, safety incident rate, pay equity ratio, turnover rate, labor violation incidents, or insecure contract share.

Fair Trade & Ethical Sourcing

No specific, quantitative data regarding APEI.US's fair trade and ethical sourcing practices was found in the provided articles.

The articles either focused on environmental initiatives, general ethical supply chain concepts, or explicitly stated the absence of relevant data for APEI.US across all requested metrics, including fair-trade certifications, audit frequency, forced or child labor incidents, supply chain traceability, remediation speed, ethical clause coverage in contracts, materials risk index, and supplier diversity spend.

Honest & Fair Business

APEI has a whistleblower policy in its employee handbooks, which applies to all employees, officers, and directors across its subsidiaries.

It includes an anonymous Alertline operated by a third-party organization, Navex Global, and prohibits retaliation against anyone making good faith reports of wrongdoing. The company strictly complies with laws prohibiting bribery, corruption, and improper payments, and its Code of Business Conduct and Ethics applies company-wide. The executive team receives training in anti-corruption strategies, and employees receive training on a broad range of compliance matters. However, the company's engagement with a third-party environmental consultant is specifically to measure greenhouse gas emissions and analyze environmental impact, not for general ethical claims or compliance verification.

Kind to Animals

The provided articles do not contain specific, concrete evidence to assess American Public Education, Inc. (APEI.US) against any of the KPIs for the 'Kind to Animals' ethical value. Information regarding cruelty-free certifications, animal testing policies or volumes, humane certifications for operations, wildlife conservation impact with measurable outcomes, ethical input substitution, supplier audits for welfare, cage-free sourcing, innovation investment in animal-free technologies, animal agriculture ethics, animal-free R&D collaboration, or public policy engagement related to animal welfare is not present.

While one article mentions APUS is a signatory to a climate commitment, this is not directly related to animal welfare policy engagement as defined by the rubric.

Respect for Cultures & Communities

The company has no reported cultural appropriation incidents.

Formal grievance mechanisms are available for student concerns through the APUS Student Conduct Officer, Title IX Coordinator, and an anonymous APUS Student Hotline. Additionally, third-party complaint procedures are available with accreditors and state agencies. For community complaints, the company commits to an initial response outlining next steps and timelines within 3-5 business days.

Zero Waste & Sustainable Products

APEI has set targets to reduce non-hazardous waste per full-time equivalent (FTE) by 20% by 2030 and by 50% by 2050.

The company prioritized recycling at its headquarters in 2009. No regulatory actions, violations, fines, or compliance issues related to waste disposal are mentioned.