Fortune 500 List Lacks Ed. Companies, But Includes Prominent K-12 Vendors

Associate Editor

While the 2014 Fortune 500 list is devoid of education companies, it does feature some high-profile vendors in K-12 education.

On Monday, Fortune magazine released its Fortune 500 ranking of the country’s top public and closely held private companies based on total revenues for their fiscal years.

On the expanded Fortune 1000 listing, Graham Holdings Co., a Washington-based business that owns Kaplan, among other properties in the news, cable, and broadcasting areas, lost ranking (to No. 614, down from  No. 580 last year) but gained profitability by 79 percent, compared with last year. Kaplan serves the K-12 market, with academic-tutoring and test-preparation services.

Companies that do business with K-12 companies are prominent on the list. The highest-ranked was Apple, the Cupertino, Calif.-based company whose iPads and other devices have been popular with districts; it rose to No. 5, from last year’s ranking of No. 6.

Appearing on the Fortune 500 rankings are the following vendors to U.S. public schools:

  • Apple, 5th
  • AT&T, 11th
  • Verizon Communications, 16th
  • Hewlett-Packard, 17th
  • International Business Machines, 23rd
  • Microsoft, 34th
  • Amazon, 35th
  • Comcast, 44th
  • Google, 46th

The full Fortune 500 list is available here.

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