Herndon, M. Craig. "Improving Consumer Information For Higher Education Planning." New Directions For Institutional Research 2012.153 (n.d.): 63. EBSCO: Academic Search Premier (EBSCO EIT) (XML). Web. 9 Apr. 2013.
This article was focused on what information was available to students to make better decisions on various topics pertaining to college and how they could potentially fix this information gap. After various surveys from different populations, it was concluded that the major areas where students lacked information were making decisions about careers, majors, colleges, and paying for college. Therefore, they created a system called the Virginia Education Wizard to help students of all ages answer questions and find valuable information on topics pertaining to college and information about specific colleges and universities. In the two years that this program has been used it has seen immediate positive outcomes although they state that without further analysis they cannot be sure of concrete conclusions. As stated in the article, "The Wizard was created to provide consumers with better information in guiding they career and college-planning decisions". Although this article does not solely focus on college finances, it is helping in understanding the different ways people are trying to overcome this lack of information.
According to Virginia Health Workforce Development Authority, "Craig Herndon, Ph.D., serves as Vice Chancellor for Workforce Development Services for the Virginia Community College System (VCCS) where he provides leadership to workforce training programs and services consumed by more than 250,000 participants annually at 23 colleges on 40 campuses. As the Chief Workforce Development officer, Herndon has helped to align the strategic vision of workforce development at Virginia’s Community Colleges and the Commonwealth’s 15 workforce investment boards, for which the VCCS acts as the state administrator, in the shared pursuit of increased credential attainment, increased employment attainment, and enhanced services to businesses".
"A deficit of good information has the potential to produce negative consequences for the individual consumer" (page 64). Students can have information, but unless it is good information it is useless to them. The information needs to be able to used to their advantage or else you might as well not even give them the information in the first place. Students are bound to make poor choices without good information guiding them.
"No comprehensive information sources existed for the most pressing questions and no technology solution sets existed to meet the scope of the needs identified though the survey" (page 66). This survey revealed that for the questions that most students were asking there were no answers or information regarding these question available for them to consult. They also didn't find any technological ways to find the answers they were seeking. It is shown that is it hard for students to find the answers they need, therefore they often get frustrated and give up on finding it. We need to make this information more available for them.
"The Wizard was created to provide consumers with better information in guiding career-and college planning decisions" (page 69). This program is in place to address the problem of information deficiency for students in Virginia. They are trying to make useful information available for students who wish to use it and are trying to answer their most pressing questions pertaining to a higher education.
This material helps explore my research question because it shows how people are trying to fix the problems of the information deficit for students. If students have the information they need they will be able to make more informed and reasonable decisions about college.
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