Learning Curve at Washington Post

Kaplan also provides professional training and partners with schools to provide tutoring services. Its SCORE! Education Centers provide after-school learning programs to children at 164 centers nationwide as well.

Since 2002, Kaplan University has added 10 degree programs; online enrollment has doubled each year since, while the unit's revenue has tripled over the same period.

"Given the increasing acceptance of online education, we expect that online-education enrollment will continue to grow, and that Kaplan University's financial results will grow in tandem," says Walden in a recent report.

He also notes that Kaplan now has over 50,000 students enrolled in 29 locations outside the U.S., and he expects that number to keep growing.

This month, the company announced that it extended its reach into China through a partnership with a Beijing-based English-language-training company, Beijing New Channel Education and Cultural Development Co.

It also acquired PMBR, a nationwide provider of test preparation for the multistate bar examination, and English-language instructor Aspect Education, which has 19 schools located in various countries.

Last month, it announced that Kaplan was teaming up with Newsweek, The Post's general-interest magazine, to offer an online M.B.A. program.

The newsweekly will help Kaplan provide students with case studies of current business topics, along with video and online presentations, chats and interviews.

Given all these investments, along with the cost of recent employee buyout offers at The Washington Post aimed at reducing the paper's headcount, the company may show lackluster results for its efforts in the third quarter on Friday.

Judging from recent disappointments from its publishing peers, like Tribune (TRB Quote) and The New York Times Company (NYT Quote), the newspaper business only got worse in recent months.

But all the doom and gloom may translate into a cheap stock price for Washington Post.