With employment numbers still reeling, new educational opportunities are high on peoples' to-do lists... This for-profit GARP ed play is one of the best in the breed.

Increased dividend to $0.10 from $0.08 for shareholders of record on 12/11.

earnings

The company reported revenue growth of 21.3% year over year in the first quarter of fiscal 2009. This growth outpaced the industry average of 12.7%, and it also appears to have helped boost EPS, which improved 29.7% compared with the same quarter last year. Net operating cash flow increased 21% to $96.8 million in the first quarter. DeVry has a very low debt-to-equity ratio of 0.2, which implies that the company has been very successful at managing its debt levels. During September 2008, DeVry completed the acquisition of U.S. Education, the parent company of Apollo College and Western Career College, which operates 17 campus locations in the western United States.

Questor Pharmaceuticals (QCOR) is successfully
growing its cash flow from operations, which it is using to
stimulate its share price with ongoing buyback efforts.

33%

DeVry Inc. established a program to buy back up to $50 million of its stock, the education company said last week.

The program replaces a program, announced in November 2006, to buy back up to $35 million of stock. The company exhausted that program last month.

The buyback program represents about 1.2 percent of the value of the company's outstanding shares.

Now the incredible collapse of anything educational -- all of these schools that needed cheap student loans -- is shocking in its tailspin. Why should we think that Apollo Group (APOL) bottoms or DeVry (DV) or Strayer (STRA) or Career Education (CECO)?

Top 5 Mid-Cap Stocks
Brittany Umar details some of TheStreet.com Ratings prime picks.

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Devry (DV) was upgraded from Equal-weight to Overweight, Morgan Stanley said. $58 price target. Company has least exposure to the current lending crisis, and the shares look oversold.