I have one child playing College lacrosse and another in the the recruiting process and I will give my opinion on this important and interesting topic.
Assuming that all of our kids will be going to college regardless of being an athlete, use lacrosse as a tool to get into the best academic school that you can and pay for it as you would if you had a "regular" kid. Lacrosse is an unfair advantage that our kids have over non athletes so use it. I do not think you can look for return on investment because while athletic scholarships are great for some people, on average a majority of travel players will get no money. think about other sports that are popular and expensive here on Long Island (hockey in particular) where there are virtually no kids getting scholarships yet you have hundreds of kids playing travel mostly because it is fun. AAU basketball, travel baseball are the same, with relatively few kids playing in college much less getting any money. If you want return on investment get tutors and SAT prep course and get academic money, there is a lot more of that available. My oldest got 4x's the amount of academic money then athletic money and probably would not have even gotten into the school without lacrosse.
good luck | 
