21% of firms stopped hiring entry-level. 47% Are About to with Dr. Stephen Murgatroyd

Dr. Stephen Murgatroyd helped build the world's first fully online graduate program — an MBA at Athabasca University in 1993, back when connecting to the internet meant putting a phone handset in a cradle. Within 24 months, it had captured 30% of the executive MBA market. Since then, he's spent more than 35 years advising career colleges, public institutions, K-12 networks, and provincial quality assurance bodies on where education is going — and what happens to institutions that don't move fast enough to meet it. In episode 95 of the EdUp Canada Podcast — a return visit — host Michael Sangster brings Stephen back for an unscripted conversation about three things: what AI is actually doing to students' cognitive development, what it's doing to entry-level jobs, and what Canada's career college sector needs to do about both before it's too late. The numbers Stephen brings are not abstract. 21% of Canadian firms have already stopped hiring at entry level. 47% intend to join them within the year. The shelf life of technical accounting skills — according to Deloitte — is now 18 months, 12 for audit. And the problem underneath all of it isn't a skills gap. It's a trust gap: employers can no longer tell whether a graduate did the work or the AI did. Stephen's argument is that the first career colleges to move — to embed AI across every program, to shift from assessing what students know to what they can do, to build lifelong learning systems that serve the 30-million-person re-skilling market rather than the 3-million-person entry-level market — will define what career education looks like for the next generation. [00:00:00] — "21% of Canadian Firms Have Stopped Hiring at Entry Level"  [00:06:30] — The World's First Online MBA — Built When Phones Lived in Cradles [00:07:30] — The Three-Way AI Research Finding  [00:09:30] — "We Need to Shift From Assessing What Students Know to What They Can Do"  [00:11:30] — It's Not a Skills Gap. It's a Trust Gap.  [00:13:30] — The 18-Month Shelf Life of Accounting Skills  [00:20:30] — Brainport Eindhoven: What Collaboration Actually Looks Like  [00:28:00] — One Minute of Advice for Three Audiences  Read the full transcript: https://share.descript.com/view/OJpJzhoKqFR Listen to past episodes here:https://www.edupcanada.ca/