I'm a Berkeley grad, and so it pains me to say this, but I'd bet that the Stanford degree is worth at least $1M NPV more than one from TTU. But, I don't begrudge her getting her bag.
I have been conflicted about college sports for the last decade or so, because the players were exploited, plain and simple. Michigan's athletic department revenue is pegged around $250M this upcoming year. Nearly all of that is earned by the football team. With 85 scholarships, and assuming every single player is at max total cost of attendance, the total "player budget" is a shade under $7.25M, or less than 3% of earned revenue.
NIL makes that a little better, but it is not coming out of that $250M, so the University is not having to pay for it except in the form of forgone donations. Maybe that matters, but it is not as though a lot of that NIL money would have endowed an Engineering Professorship instead. When the new "autonomy conference" model kicks in and schools can pay players directly, that will change. It is still capped at $20M, and when you add that to total cost of attendance you still end up at less than 11% of total Michigan's football revenue spent on the people putting their bodies on the line to make it happen.
Granted, a lot of places ain't Michigan, and that $20M will hurt a lot more, but still.
Now, I'm not that bothered by it, because I still have my season tickets. But, I'm still...uncomfortable.
