Let me give you this hypothetical, in all seriousness. Curious if you’ll be able to punch holes in it:
Say that one of the truly gifted engineering students at Purdue proves themselves incredibly gifted based on what they’ve done during Purdue activities. This student’s work has brought major grants to Purdue. So much so that the student is offered big money by private engineering firms for off campus work. In fact, those engineering firms are offering big money just for the student to show up, because they want to support that student and want them to stay at Purdue instead of bolting early to another firm or away from Purdue.
Now say there’s a Georgia Tech hyper-talented engineering student that’s considering transferring to Purdue. Central Indiana engineering firms give the student off-campus appearance fees and paid work assignments, and he transfers to Purdue, the firms’ favorite school. Those firms think they have a better chance at hiring him when he completes his work.
1) Isn’t that how free market capitalism is supposed to work?
2) How is that different from NIL?
3) Would you bar the engineering student from being compensated in these scenarios?
4) Is at least some of the resistance to NIL merely resistance to warranted change?
I hate the easy portal movement, but I’m wondering if NIL (a separate new thing) is simply the free market at work, which isn’t always equitable to all.