That kind of thinking is putting the cart before the horse. The upper middle class pays most of the taxes that finance those programs, so you would essentially be giving them their own money back. At that point it makes more sense to simply lower taxes.

In terms of money well spent, giving more money to good students who have good teachers is probably less efficient than using the same funds in poorer neighborhoods. A bad environment can harm the future prospects of students much more easily than a good environment can improve it. In other words: students from well-off neighborhoods are generally already performing at the level that their potential allows, or close enough to it that additional investment in their education likely does not improve outcomes very much.

We can predict with reasonable accuracy if your child will go to college from your ZIP code, no needles required.

No one knows how it works or how long it lasts? I read this book in school, it's called Flowers for Algernon and it's a real tear-jerker.