Education stocks: It pays to get (and give) an education

— -- Q: How can I find education stocks that will be helped by President Obama's stimulus plan?

A: As unemployment rises, many laid-off employees are going back to school to acquire new skills.

For-profit education companies, such as Apollo Group apol, are reporting rising revenue and enrollment. Revenue at Apollo, for instance, rose 26% in the quarter ended February. That's quite a feat, as revenue and profits continue to shrink at many other companies.

And as the U.S. workforce looks for places to retool itself, Apollo is only one of the providers of for-profit education. Here are some of its most notable publicly traded rivals:

Company name (ticker symbol). Click on the ticker for more information.American Public Education apei.Bridgepoint Education bpi.Capella Education cpla.Career Education ceco.Corinthian Colleges cocoDeVry dv.Grand Canyon Education lope.ITT Educational Services esi.Lincoln Educational Services linc.Strayer Education stra.Universal Technical Institute uti.Washington Post wpo.

Matt Krantz is a financial markets reporter at USA TODAY and author of Investing Online for Dummies. He answers a different reader question every weekday in his Ask Matt column at money.usatoday.com. To submit a question, e-mail Matt at mkrantz@usatoday.com. Click here to see previous Ask Matt columns. Follow Matt on Twitter at: twitter.com/mattkrantz