SPARC Financial Landscape Analysis 2026: Education Publishers

This report examines the financial performance of the three largest US higher education course materials publishers—Pearson, McGraw Hill, and Cengage—covering the period from October 2024 to March 2026. Commissioned by SPARC and authored by market analyst Claudio Aspesi, it finds that despite improving operating results across all three companies, investors have responded with skepticism about the sector's exposure to AI, from direct substitution of course content to rising dependence on external AI infrastructure providers, along with investment levels that remain modest relative to management's stated ambitions.