Success does not usually happen in a straight line. It has twists and turns, speedbumps and detours. But something that’s fundamental to success is equipping yourself with the right skills…but what are the right skills? Well, let’s find out. Join me, Michael Sangster, as we learn about how successful people have turned a set of skills into success. From students to business leaders, veterans, policymakers, blue-collar workers and educators. You’ll find out how learning a set of skills can lead to a lifetime of success. Welcome to the EdUp Canada podcast. Let’s learn together.
For Many Students, Funding Is the Difference Between "Beyond Me" and "I Can Do This" with Alexandra Serengil of GUS Canada Colleges and OIHI
Student financial aid is one of the most consequential conversations that happens inside a career college — and one of the least understood from the outside.
Alexandra Serengil, Director of Student Accounts at GUS Canada Colleges, and lead financial aid officer for the Ontario Institute of Health and Innovation, has spent nine years inside that conversation. She came to Canada as a language student at ILAC, graduated from George Brown's events planning program, went back to ILAC to help students who looked like her, joined Toronto Film School where she learned the full complexity of provincial and out-of-province funding, and eventually arrived at OIHI — where she describes her work as taking something very complicated and making it navigable for students who are already navigating a great deal.
In this episode of the EdUp Canada Podcast, host Michael Sangster and Alexandra walk through what actually happens when a student walks in the front door of a career college and asks how they're going to pay for this. The admissions conversation. The financial aid consultation. The personal questions. The grant-versus-loan distinction. The early childhood educator grant that opens at 8AM and can close before 8:15. The mid-program touchpoint to make sure students still understand what they've signed up for. And the follow-up call after graduation to remind graduates that the loan doesn't disappear.
It's a conversation about the infrastructure that makes career college possible for students who would otherwise decide it's not for them — and the people doing the work of making that infrastructure make sense.
(https://share.descript.com/view/gWmrNfRkxa2)
What to Expect
[00:02:00] — "It's Never Just the Numbers and Regulations"
[00:04:00] — What Actually Happens When a Student Walks In
[00:06:00] — "We Ask Pretty Personal Questions"
[00:07:00] — Mid-Program Touchpoints and Post-Graduation Follow-Up
[00:14:30] — The ECE Grant That Closes at 8:15
[00:17:00] — "People Intelligence" — The Skill Lidia Taught Her
[00:21:00] — Adaptability — "It's Still Something I'm Working On"
[00:23:30] — The Student Who Came Back
(https://share.descript.com/view/gWmrNfRkxa2)
Listen to past episodes here: https://www.edupcanada.ca/ (https://www.edupcanada.ca/)
19 Aug 2026
"Diane Stone on Navigating AI Changes in Education and Insurance"
Diane Stone didn't plan to end up in insurance. She planned to be an accountant — spent years auditing school districts and career colleges with KPMG in Vancouver, then went in-house as CFO of a large private school for almost 15 years. Then she had what she calls her first midlife crisis, moved to Dubai as Director of Finance at the American School of Dubai, came back to Canada just before COVID, and found herself being asked by the broker she'd used for 20 years if she'd like to build a new specialty practice serving the Canadian education sector.
She said yes. And in doing so, she became one of the most well-positioned observers of career college risk in the country.
In episode 98 of the EdUp Canada Podcast — two episodes from the show's 100th milestone — host Michael Sangster sits with Diane for a wide-ranging conversation that opens, unscripted, with something she'd learned on a call that very morning: insurance companies are now building products to cover businesses against the errors they make from over-relying on AI. A British Columbia lawsuit — Tumblr Ridge, suing ChatGPT over advice it gave a school shooter — is the landmark case. And the sector is bracing for more.
The episode also covers the two insurance gaps Diane sees most consistently across career colleges, what Hub's Oceans 11 model of local specialist brokers looks like in practice, why the insurance industry may be one of the more AI-resilient sectors for people who are genuinely relational, and what Diane has learned about the career college sector — its agility, its regulation, and its willingness to meet gaps in the market — from the outside looking in.
[00:00:00] — "Just This Morning I Was on a Call"
[00:03:30] — "My Steepest Learning Curve of All the Sectors"
[00:04:30] — Surprised by How Regulated It Actually Is
[00:08:30] — Her First Midlife Crisis Was Moving to Dubai
[00:14:00] — The Two Gaps Most Career Colleges Are Missing
[00:15:30] — "Not What You Know, But How You Know It"
[00:23:00] — The College That Immediately Asked About Building a Program
[00:25:30] — Regulators as Part of the Economic Roadmap
(https://www.edupcanada.ca/)
Read the full transcript here: https://share.descript.com/view/hVletasWo1b (https://share.descript.com/view/hVletasWo1b)
5 Aug 2026
She Got a Job the Next Day. 40 Years Later, Her Daughter Graduated Too. with Henry Herzing of Herzing College
Henry "Hank" Herzing is 90 years old. He read the weekly reports this morning. He'll talk to Frank Cianciarusa, his president, again this week. And at some point in the not-too-distant future, he'll convene his entire Canadian and American team in Florida, because that's what you do when the culture you've built matters more to you than your title.
In this episode of the EdUp Canada Podcast, host Michael Sangster sits down with the founder and CEO of Herzing College's Canadian operations — nearly 50,000 students trained across Canada over the institution's history — for a conversation that is, at its heart, about what it means to run a business for the right reasons over a very long time.
Henry traces his career from a computer school in Milwaukee with 25 students and one grand dame receptionist, through eight years of losses in the trades division he refused to abandon, through a Navy missile incident that gave him his ethics framework before he'd ever hired his first instructor, all the way to a Winnipeg graduation where a mother grabbed him in a hug meant for her daughter — and a photo op where another mother quietly mentioned she'd graduated from Herzing 40 years earlier, gotten a job the next day, retired from that same employer, sent her daughter through university with the income, and watched that daughter come back to Herzing for skills.
That's not a marketing story. That's a life. And Henry Herzing has been accumulating them for six decades.
[00:00:00] — The Mother Who Graduated 40 Years Ago
[00:04:30] — The Navy Missile That Fell Off the Truck
[00:07:00] — 50,000 Students in Canada. What That Number Actually Means.
[00:07:30] — The Mother Who Ran Up and Hugged Him
[00:20:30] — "We Can Do It Together"
[00:14:00] — Was ist dein Beruf?
[00:16:30] — Eight Years of Losses. He Kept Going.
[00:27:30] — "If You Don't Vote, Don't Complain About the Government"
(https://share.descript.com/view/ZUmqBjOa22s)
Listen to past episodes here: https://www.edupcanada.ca/ (https://www.edupcanada.ca/)
Who has been a guest on EdUp Canada
Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.
Vice-Admiral Angus Topshee
Heather Yang
Joel English
Lieutenant Commander Chris Elliott
Mitch Talenfeld
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
2 ratings
Spotify
5.0 / 5
14 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 32 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
35
Social presence
0
YouTube
0
Engagement
71
Contact EdUp Canada
Guest appearances
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Michael Sangster host the show. Published by EdUp Canada.
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