McGraw-Hill Reports Strong Double-Digit User Growth Across Key Digital Platforms

NEW YORK, March 9, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- McGraw-Hill, the learning science company, today announced strong continued growth across key digital channels in 2014.  The company significantly increased market penetration while continued student and instructor engagement drove the number of unique users up an average 53% across the company's flagship platforms and product suites in both higher education and K-12 in the U.S.  Digital cash revenue growth continues to more than offset the declines in traditional print cash revenue.  Digital cash revenues increased by more than 25% on total consolidated cash revenues of approximately $2.2 billion.¹

McGraw-Hill, a leader in driving continued improvement in student learning outcomes through proprietary and industry leading adaptive technology, also achieved an inflection point in its ongoing digital transformation by generating more cash revenue from digital products than traditional print products in its higher education business for the first time in 2014.

"We are continuing to invest in creating and delivering the technologies that harness the science of learning to enhance student outcomes and support instructors and classes.  We are combining high-quality content and software to create personalized learning that's been proven to be effective," said David Levin, president and CEO of McGraw-Hill. "This week in Austin at the SXSWedu conference, we will be launching the new version of the McGraw-Hill Connect® platform with a student-centric and mobile-first design that is emblematic of where we are going as a learning science company.  We have an ambitious roadmap to drive the best possible outcomes for students."

Each of the key digital platforms reported strong growth during the year.

• Connect, the digital learning platform for students and instructors in higher education shown to increase both pass and retention rates, saw a strong correlation between usage and engagement levels: unique users increased 17% to 3.0 million during 2014, while engagement levels were deepened with 77.9 million student assignments submitted (up 32%) and 7.3 million instructor assignments created (up 51%) during the year.
• LearnSmart, the adaptive platform and suite of products shown to improve course grades by a full letter, served 2.0 million unique users during 2014, an increase of 33%.
• ALEKS, a web-based artificially intelligent assessment and learning platform for math with offerings across both the K-12 and higher education markets and strong efficacy results, was up 36% during 2014 to 2.0 million unique users.
• ConnectED, McGraw-Hill's digital platform for the K-12 market, served 3.5 million unique users during 2014, an increase of 58%.
• Engrade, the developer of an open digital platform acquired in early 2014 to unify data, curriculum and tools for the K-12 market, more than doubled the unique users of its Engrade Pro product to 3.3 million in 2014.

McGraw-Hill Global Education Holdings, LLC will report its full 2014 operating results via 10K and 8K reports filed with the SEC before the market opens on Tuesday, March 31, 2015.  David Levin, president and CEO, and Patrick Milano, Chief Financial Officer, will host a call from investors to discuss the results at 10 am ET on that day.  The dial-in phone number and a copy of the presentation and filings will be available at the company's website at http://investors.mheducation.com/.

¹ Notes to Editors:

• All figures are unaudited.
• McGraw-Hill refers to the brand name for the combined Higher Education, Professional and International businesses (incorporated as McGraw-Hill Global Education Holdings, LLC) and the K-12 and Assessment businesses (incorporated as McGraw-Hill School Education Holdings, LLC).
• McGraw-Hill believes cash revenue is the most appropriate revenue metric for the business due to the increasingly material component of our revenue from digital sales which may be deferred for Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) purposes. Cash revenue provides an appropriate comparison across all periods.
• Unique user is defined as an individual who authenticates into the given product, allowing access to a product/content/environment, at least once during a particular period of time.