McGraw Hill Sales Fall 6 Percent in Fiscal Second Quarter
McGraw Hill reported second-quarter sales of $632.2 million, down 6 percent, for the quarter that ended on 30 September 2026. The education publisher, which makes textbooks, courseware and learning tools for schools, colleges and professional training, released the figures in early November.
Net income, the profit left after all costs are paid, came in at $86.4 million. That was down 18 percent on the year before, according to the company's results.
The company also reported adjusted EBITDA of $250.6 million, down 12 percent. EBITDA stands for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation. It is a way of measuring how much cash a business generates from its operations, and companies often adjust it to strip out one-off items they choose to exclude. The same report put the adjusted EBITDA margin, the share of sales that becomes adjusted EBITDA, at 39.6 percent for the fiscal second quarter of 2027.
Those numbers show a company earning less on lower sales. Sales fell by a smaller percentage than adjusted EBITDA, and net income fell further than either.
Why does a school-focused publisher matter to a general reader? Textbooks and course materials reach classrooms through a long chain. Authors and editors shape the content, publishers pay to produce and sell it, and schools and students buy it, often through wholesalers and bookshops. Quarterly results like these show how much money moves through that chain, even when the books themselves rarely make headlines.
McGraw Hill's fiscal year runs on a different calendar from the one most people use. Its second quarter of fiscal 2027 covers July to September 2026, so the results describe the summer and early autumn months that cover the start of many school and university terms.
For anyone following the wider book business, the figures are one company's snapshot, not a verdict on the industry. Education publishing and trade publishing, which sells general fiction and non-fiction to bookshops, operate under different pressures. Quarterly reports from other companies in either sector will show whether these numbers stand alone or form part of a wider pattern.
