What I wanted to come back to....
You picked Alberta. Post-secondary is a provincial jurisdiction, as you very well know. Alberta calls it a “web” of credentials, not a ladder. We have hierarchical thinking in most of this country: BA, MA, PhD. We call it a web, with any point of entry, any point of exit. You can get two-plus-two programs. You can do dual credit. You can do it in Ontario too. That's a creative model, with high school and college graduation.
Third, to answer your question on the creative ways to go, every single college program has an industry-based representative on the program advisory committee. Why aren't we harnessing what those guys know about the industry demand for a national story?