By: Dr. Deborah Tollefsen, Vice Provost & Dean of the UofM Graduate School

I know I am not the only Graduate Dean that fantasizes about NIL for our top graduate student scholars.

NIL didn’t start as a sweeping reform—it started with a video game. College athletes showed up as characters who looked, played, and performed just like them…without getting paid. Then NIL expanded to endorsements, ads, and a whole ecosystem built around recognizing value.

So here’s a slightly ridiculous thought: What if we did the same for graduate students?

Imagine a video game where the characters are real graduate students—their name, image, and likeness. You build a team: a climate scientist, a data analyst, an engineer, a sociologist. Each has strengths. Stats. Special skills.

The competition? Not football games—global challenges: climate change, poverty, crime, political instability, public health.

Winning depends on how well your team collaborates, adapts, and actually solves problems.

ChatGPT gave me these suggestions for possible names:

• Grand Strategy: Academia (nod to Paradox games like Europa Universalis)
• Research Tycoon (play on RollerCoaster Tycoon)
• SimUniversity: Graduate Lab (play on The Sims / SimCity)
• PhDcraft (light Minecraft riff)
• League of Scholars (play on League of Legends)

Would anyone play that game? …Yeah, maybe not.

But here’s what isn’t silly:

Our top graduate student scholars are the future of science, industry, and the creative economy. And they’re already doing the work.

If we invested in them—even a fraction of what we invest in college athletics—the U.S. wouldn’t just compete globally. We’d be untouchable.

College athletics has shown us what it looks like to rally resources, visibility, and enthusiasm around talent.

What if we brought even a bit of that same energy to graduate education?

Published: March 2026