First off - thanks for sharing your perspective on FinTech hiring. That’s good to hear. You are most definitely correct that there is way more out there than FAANG. My niece has had amazing and fascinating paid internship opportunities as a result of a joint skillset related to the biomedical industry and comp sci. Stuff I would never have thought up. My son is interested in aerospace and comp sci.
That’s a fascinating stat about $400k to make it as a Div 1 athlete. I have watched parent friends with talented kids chasing college opportunities with respect to baseball and boy’s lacrosse for several years now. In short… it’s nuts. I’ve heard hockey is worse, but I know multiple families that have probably spent over $200,000 now on travel teams, participation in elite showcase tournaments, private coaching, elite camps and clinic all at top tier schools for lacrosse… and their boys are only sophomores in high school.
For many of these parents (who are my age and in their mid 40’s to early 50’s), it seems like they started down this road because they remember back in the late 1980’s and throughout the 1990’s how they knew kids at high school who were good students, and great at a sport like men’s lacrosse, and it earned them a spot to attend an Ivy League school or some other prestigious school like UVA, Duke, or Johns’ Hopkins (all of which are lacrosse powerhouse schools). I have two family members who went to Hopkins and played lacrosse in the 90’s, and they would not have gotten in except for that sport.
Anyway… unfortunately many of these parents don’t realize how much the competitive aspect of college admissions has intensified. There has been a mad rush to find these sorts of admissions “side doors.” So there are many many more kids all trying to be that sort of “student athlete” who makes it onto a team and clinches a major opportunity.
And thus, the lucrative youth sports industry has flourished. Travel teams, showcase tournaments, specialist coaching, expensive clinics and camps with key people who know the key college coaches personally, etc etc etc.
I will share on this thread that both my family members who played for Hopkins in the 90’s say that they would never have a chance of making it on the team today. The competition is too stiff. And one of them went on to be a pro lacrosse player in the MLL for a full decade. And coaches an elite high school team and runs a travel team of his own. His son, who is an insane athlete, great student, and a high school senior, just committed to play for a specific regional university in New York as part of a D3 program. This kid had it all… great grades and good SATs, was born with a lacrosse stick in his hand, and has been playing on travel teams since age 7. Traveled all over the country. Is a highly ranked All American player. And… his dad personally knows and played with many of the current coaches of major Div 1 programs… plus he is a legacy with Johns’ Hopkins.
And … even with all of that… he couldn’t get a D1 spot.
Anyway… in some respects D1 riding reminds me a little of lacrosse. Maybe it used to be a niche athletic side door that helped certain talented kids get into great schools all while being part of a really cool team in a sport they love…. But everyone has caught on, and competition for spots is now ferocious and the parents that can afford to set their kids up with a better a chance of making that team will DEFINITELY outspend everyone else, and that will almost certainly be a difference maker.
Oh well. Not to be a Debbie Downer. That’s just the way it is. I think it makes a lot more financial and emotional sense to just enjoy sports for the sake of the sport, and save for college, and leave the chasing of college athletic team opportunities for people who have the money, or are absolute freak athletes and outliers in that respect. 
