How To Pay For College; Rugg's Video On The Colleges

With the cost of a college education rising between 7-9% each year, early planning has become a must for those parents who plan to send their offspring off to campus. Emmy-award winning reporter John Spiropoulos hosts How to Pay for College, a 1989 production which has been revised and updated for 1993. Combining interviews with financial aid experts and students along with detailed graphs and charts, the program covers the "expected family contribution," the ins and outs of applying for financial aid, the various types of aid available, the pluses (and minuses) of scholarships, and saving and investment strategies. How to Pay for College provides both an excellent overview of the subject and a bunch of really useful tips, and includes an informative print guide containing relevant tables and formulas. Rugg's Video on the Colleges, on the other hand, is an excellent example of how a revered staple in one medium doesn't necessarily mean success in another. Rugg's Recommendations on the Colleges, now in it's tenth edition, is a common sight in public and school library career collections, offering Rugg's numerical grading system on undergraduate colleges across the country, arranged in easy-to-use, ready reference manner. Ruggs Video on the Colleges is quite a different story: a videotaped talk before a group of high school kids' parents, the camera gamely tries to keep Mr. Rugg in frame as he fields questions from the audience (questions the viewer doesn't hear), which he responds to by reeling off the numerical grade from his number system (which is never really explained). Over the course of the hour-long presentation some 50 colleges are "covered," ranging from a disproportionately long discourse on Harvard vs. Yale to something like: "I'm getting better vibrations out of University of Kentucky." Too, the extensive listing of majors and the best associated colleges--a great feature of the book--is completely lost here. Rugg mentions pre-med and computer science programs, but that's about it. In short, this is a poorly filmed talking head lecture that serves no reference function whatsoever, and is not terribly coherent (unless one is already familiar with Rugg's system).How to Pay for College is highly recommended. Rugg's Video on the Colleges is not recommended. (See ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY for availability of How to Pay for College). (Rugg's Video on the Colleges is available from: Rugg's Recommendations, 5749 Colonial Oaks Blvd., Sarasota, FL 34232; (818) 378-4324.)