eCollege(R) Named to Forbes' List of the Top 25 Fastest Growing Technology Companies

eCollege(R) Named to Forbes' List of the Top 25 Fastest Growing Technology Companies

Company Earns Twelfth Spot Based on Five-Year Growth

DENVER, Feb. 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- eCollege(R) (NASDAQ:ECLG), a leading provider of value-added information services to the post-secondary education industry, today announced it has been named to Forbes' list of the Top 25 Fastest Growing Technology Companies in the country. eCollege ranked twelfth, and is one of only 14 companies to make the list both last year and this year.

"We are proud to be recognized by Forbes on its list of the fastest growing technology companies based on our last five years of growth," said Oakleigh Thorne, chairman and CEO of eCollege. "We are fortunate to serve the fast growing post-secondary education industry with products and services that are essential to sustaining its growth, which should position us well for strong growth over the next five years."

Forbes qualified publicly traded companies that showed sustained growth over a five-year period. According to the article in the Forbes issue dated February 14, 2005, companies must have at least a 10 percent sales gain in each of the last five years, $25 million in sales and a positive net income over the last 12 months, and no large legal problems or other open-ended liabilities.

About eCollege

eCollege (NASDAQ:ECLG) is a leading provider of value-added information services to the post-secondary and K-12 education industries. The Company's eLearning Division designs, builds and supports some of the most successful, fully online degree, certificate/diploma and professional development programs in the country. The Company's Enrollment Division, Datamark, Inc., helps institutions build new enrollments and increase student retention. Customers include publicly traded for-profit institutions, community colleges, public and private universities, school districts and state departments of education. eCollege was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Denver. Datamark was founded in 1987 and is headquartered in Salt Lake City. For more information, visit www.eCollege.com and www.Datamark.com.

This news release contains statements that are not historical in nature and that may be characterized as "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the securities laws, including statements regarding: the success, expected results, and functionality of our products and services; adequacy of our products and services to support customer requirements; customer satisfaction with our products and services; the success of our customers; and any other statements that are not historical facts. You can identify such statements when you see words such as "will," expect," "plan," "believe" and similar expressions. These statements are based on management's current expectations and are subject to a number of uncertainties and risks. Actual results may differ materially. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from estimates or projections contained in the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to: the difficulty in predicting future growth due to the early stage of and rapid changes in the market for our products and services; our eLearning customers' ability to continue to build, grow and market their online programs; the difficulty in predicting changes in the mix of marketing products and services employed by customers of our Enrollment Division; substantial competition, including pricing competition, in the online education and enrollment and retentions services markets; technological developments, emerging industry standards and government regulations, and customer requirements, which continually require us to improve our software and services; a significant portion of our revenue is generated from a relatively small number of customers; our debt obligations could adversely affect our financial health and our ability to obtain financing and react to changes in our business; the possibility that we may not be able to achieve continued growth or profitability, or maintain current levels of revenue; our ability to protect our intellectual property and other proprietary rights from infringement; the impact of laws and regulations affecting education and the Internet; the ability of the Company to retain key executives at eCollege and Datamark; our lengthy sales cycle; our network infrastructure and computer systems failing; the vulnerability of our network to security risks; the possibility that we may not be able to raise additional capital on acceptable terms; Datamark's ability to develop and sustain long- term customer relationships; the cost of marketing activities, including mailing lists, materials and postal rates; the use in these estimates of preliminary allocations of the assets acquired and liabilities assumed from Datamark and the possibility that the Datamark operations could be disruptive to our existing business, may not be successfully integrated, and may not live up to financial or business expectations and the additional debt incurred increases our leverage and fixed debt service obligations; the effects general economic conditions may have on our revenues; and such other factors as are discussed in our most recent Form 10-K/A Annual Report and Form 10-Q Quarterly Report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), which you are encouraged to review in connection with this release. We believe that these forward-looking statements are reasonable; however, you should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which are based on current expectations and speak only as of the date of this release. We are not obligated to publicly release any revisions to forward-looking statements to reflect events after the date of this release.

eCollege is a registered trademark of eCollege.


Source: eCollege

CONTACT: Kristi Emerson, Public Relations Manager of eCollege,
+1-303-873-3788, kristie@eCollege.com

Web site: http://www.ecollege.com/
http://www.datamark.com/


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