Top 5 Mid-Caps for Nov. 27

Each business day, TheStreet.com Ratings compiles a list of the top five stocks in one of five categories -- fast-growth, all-around value, large-cap, mid-cap and small-cap -- based on data from the close of the previous trading session. Today we focus on mid-caps. These are stocks of companies that have market capitalizations of between $500 million and $10 billion that rank near the top of all stocks rated by our proprietary quantitative model, which looks at more than 60 factors. The stocks must also be followed by at least one financial analyst who posts estimates on the Institutional Brokers' Estimate System. They are ordered by their potential to appreciate.

Note that no provision is made for off-balance-sheet assets such as unrealized appreciation/depreciation of investments, market value of real estate or contingent liabilities that might affect book value. This could be material for some companies with large underfunded pension plans.

DeVry(DV Quote) is an international higher education company that operates DeVry University, Ross University, Chamberlin College of Nursing and Becker Professional Review. The company has been rated a buy since January 2007. DeVry's strengths can be seen in a variety of areas, such as its impressive record of earnings-per-share growth, good cash flow from operations, robust revenue growth and largely solid financial position.

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% when 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 0.21, 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 U.S.