I agree to most people that you should invest in yourself instead. Growth and knowledge would lead you to success no matter what happens.
it's well known that the entire altcoin world is nothing more than a heaven for speculators and pump & dump freaks. if you decide to invest in altcoins, then you must accept the fact/risk that you potentially can lose big time. if that's ok with people, then it's all up to them.
I am sure some altcoins are actually about bringing a new type of innovation, but the gross of the altcoins projects are eithers scams or intended to pump the hell out of it.
Which is why you should be careful to not invest in. Just stick with the altcoins with a good development team (public figures).
Because these developers got the most to lose.
I would rather suggest you invest into altcoins with Researchers as developers or people in the industry. They usually won't do a scam for getting some btc, and I have had people do research into coins like Ripple Network system at universities.
It's of course always good to have professional people on board working on the project, but even these people form a certain risk when they start seeing the possibility of "earning" ahhhuuumm, stealing coins to get rich in a matter of a few minutes when they move over the funds to a different address. Look at Mark Karpeles, this dude had already like 100,000 BTC, but still he feeled the need to run away with the coins and money from people. Long story short~ When people have $$$ signs in their eyes, then prepare yourself for the worst.