Paul Sullivan wrote about the investments that parents are making in the hopes of not having to pay for college:

• The amount of money that parents are paying to provide sports coaching to their kids has grown to 10.5% of gross income.
• Some see this as an investment – if a child gets a sports scholarship then the parents won’t have to pay for college.
• Parents will thus pay coaches up to $400 an hour to make their children better sportspeople.
• They’ll also take them to camps across the country.
• The chances of a child getting a sports scholarship is so small though that the expected return on investment doesn’t justify the amounts spent.

Read what parents should really be spending money on, the problem of emotionally immature tutors, and more over here.

Source: The New York Times