Property and Equipment

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2016

Property, Plant and Equipment [Abstract]

Property and equipment at December 31, 2015 and 2016 consisted of the following:



	Useful Life	2015		2016
		(in thousands)
Land	—	$	9,501	$	9,394
Building and building improvements	27.5 - 39 years	58,429		54,541
Leasehold improvements	up to 15 years	1,002		1,208
Office equipment	5 years	2,322		2,219
Computer equipment	3 years	25,179		22,492
Furniture and fixtures	7 years	8,124		8,036
Other capital assets	5 years	1,829		128
Software development	5 years	74,737		79,452
Program development	3 years	4,920		6,966
		186,043		184,436
Accumulated depreciation and amortization		76,762		86,749
		$	109,281	$	97,687

Assets held for sale of $2.1 million are excluded from the $97.7 million in property and equipment in the above table. For additional information see “Note 5. Assets Held for Sale” in these Consolidated Financial Statements.

For the year ended December 31, 2016, the Company’s APEI Segment disposed $5.0 million in long-lived assets, primarily consisting of a loss that resulted from the abandoned development of a new student course registration system. It was no longer probable that development would be completed and the software placed in service due to programming difficulties that could not be resolved in a timely basis and without additional cost. The original carrying value of the software and incurred cost was $4.0 million. The losses on long-lived assets are included as loss on disposals of long-lived assets in these Consolidated Financial Statements.

During the years ended December 31, 2014, 2015 and 2016, the Company recorded depreciation expense of $14,980,000, $19,626,000 and $18,674,000, respectively. In addition, the Company recorded amortization expense related to other assets of $1,141,000, $894,000, and $710,000 during the years ended December 31, 2014, 2015 and 2016, respectively.