Chinese students aren’t the only ones sought by American colleges looking for students who can afford to pay. Another target: lacrosse players. Historically, lacrosse has been most popular in Upstate New York and the Middle Atlantic states and many colleges outside those regions didn’t field teams. Now, Midwestern liberal arts colleges are starting teams. They hope to benefit from lacrosse’s growing popularity, which means that many students who fall in love with the sport aren’t good enough to land a spot on the team of a traditional powerhouse in the Northeast corridor. But because the sport is popular in prep schools and well-off suburbs, the odds are that many of those lacrosse players are able to afford college on their own. And while lacrosse is growing in popularity for men and women alike, the population of male "full pay" students is in short supply at many liberal arts colleges — and that’s part of why you are seeing more teams in different parts of the country.