LMMMAlower middle market M&A

NAICS 6111 · 51 financed acquisitions

$51.4MCapital deployed

Elementary and Secondary Schools

51 of these businesses were bought with SBA 7(a) acquisition financing since FY2019. The median carried $665,000 of bank debt; the middle half ran $316k to $1.4M. That range is the closest thing to a public price record this part of the market has.

What this is and is not. These figures are loan amounts, not sale prices. A buyer typically funds an acquisition with bank debt plus an equity injection plus, very often, a note from the seller. The SBA file records only its own loan. Read the median here as the debt-financeable portion of a typical deal in this industry, and assume the enterprise value was higher.

§1

Volume and price

What elementary and secondary schools financed by an SBA 7(a) acquisition loan actually cost, and how many of them there were.

Financed acquisitions51Disbursed loans, FY2019 to date
Capital deployed$51.4MGross approval, all years
Median loan$665,000Half above, half below
Interquartile range$316k - $1.4MMiddle half of deals
Median rate7.25%51 loans with a recorded rate
Median term10 years51 loans with a recorded term

Source: SBA 7(a) FOIA loan-level extract, change-of-ownership approvals, FY2019 onward. Data as of 30 June 2026. n = 51 financed acquisitions.

Loan size distribution
Size bandAcquisitionsShare
Under $250k815.7%
$250k to $500k1121.6%
$500k to $1M1427.5%
$1M to $2M917.6%
$2M to $3.5M815.7%
$3.5M to $5M12.0%
$5M and above00.0%
All51100.0%

The 7(a) programme caps a single loan at $5M, so the top band is a ceiling of the instrument, not of the market. Deals above it are financed conventionally and do not appear in this file at all.

§2

How the paper was structured

Loan terms here are not spread smoothly. They spike at exactly ten years and again at exactly twenty-five, with very little in between. Those two points are the programme's maturity ceilings, and which one applies depends on what secures the loan, so a term running past ten years indicates real property was financed alongside the business.

Term structure
TermWhat it indicatesAcquisitionsShare
Under 10 yearsShorter than the goodwill maximum35.9%
Exactly 10 yearsThe standard goodwill-only note3262.7%
10 to 20 yearsMixed collateral23.9%
20 years and overReal property financed with the business1427.5%

62.7% of loans here run exactly ten years and 27.5% run twenty years or more. n = 51 loans with a recorded term.

§3

What happened next

Two outcomes are visible in the file: approvals that never funded, and funded loans that later charged off. Both are facts about deals, not forecasts.

Approvals cancelled10.5%6 of 57 approvals never disbursed
Charged off, FY2019-FY2021 cohort-Cohort too small to publish (24 loans)
Jobs recorded931Jobs supported, as reported by the lender at approval
Franchised17.6%Share of acquisitions carrying a franchise name

The charge-off share is cumulative as of 30 June 2026 for loans approved in FY2019-FY2021. Those loans are five to seven years into terms that are usually ten years, so the figure is a floor and the lifetime rate will be higher. It is not comparable to a rate computed over a fully matured cohort, and the site does not publish one for later years for that reason.

§4

By fiscal year

FY19FY20FY21FY22FY23FY24FY25FY26*

* FY2026 is incomplete. The extract closes 30 June 2026, nine months into a fiscal year that ends 30 September, and some FY2026 approvals have not yet disbursed. Do not read the last column as a decline.

§5

Concentration

Most active states
StateAcquisitionsShare
CA California1019.6%
FL Florida713.7%
AZ Arizona713.7%
TX Texas59.8%
PA Pennsylvania35.9%
GA Georgia35.9%
MA Massachusetts35.9%
OR Oregon23.9%
CO Colorado12.0%
VA Virginia12.0%
Most active lenders
LenderAcquisitionsShare
The Huntington National Bank611.8%
Midwest Regional Bank35.9%
Capital One23.9%
U.S. Bank23.9%
Live Oak Banking Company23.9%
Beacon Bank and Trust23.9%
IncredibleBank23.9%
Bell Bank23.9%

The top lender here wrote 11.8% of the financed acquisitions in this industry. Concentration matters to a seller because a buyer's financing contingency is only as good as the small number of banks that understand the business.

§6

Other industry groups in Educational Services

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