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But it turns out that the children being primed for that race to the top from preschool onward aren’t in such great shape, either.

That is the conclusion of research by Suniya S. Luthar, professor of psychology and education at Columbia University’s Teachers College. Dr. Luthar stumbled upon the subject of troubled rich kids. “I was looking for a comparison group for the inner-city kids,” Dr. Luthar told me. “And we happened to find that substance use, depression and anxiety, particularly among the girls, were much higher than among inner-city kids.”

That accidental discovery set Dr. Luthar on a research path that has prompted her to conclude that the children of privilege are an “at-risk” group. “What we are finding again and again, in upper-middle-class school districts, is the proportion who are struggling are significantly higher than in normative samples,” she said. “Upper-middle-class kids are an at-risk group.”

Dr. Luthar’s findings are directly connected to the stepped-up spending on children’s education at the top that Dr. Kornrich and Dr. Furstenberg document. The title of the paper she is finishing, due to be published in the autumn, is “I Can, Therefore I Must: Fragility in the Upper Middle Class,” and it describes a world in which the opportunities, and therefore the demands, for upper-middle-class children are infinite.

“It is an endless cycle, starting from kindergarten,” Dr. Luthar said. “The difficulty is that you have these enrichment activities. It is almost as if, if you have the opportunity, you must avail yourself of it. The pressure is enormous.”