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You should feel jealous. STEM PhD candidates get a bad deal. They’re already skilled enough to earn a good living, and they provide labor for their managers to the benefit of their employers as any other employees do.

In any other job, on-the-job-training is compensated as work, even if it takes a while to complete, even if the employer provides training or seminars to clients as part of its business. (Yes, a school is a business. If one wants to say that it isn’t, it should stop charging money for its services first.)

Job applicants in other sectors are warned that it’s the red flag of a scam to pay an employer for a chance at an offer or promotion. By normal standards, an employee paying their employer is bonkers.

Your scenario is enlightening. If paying a student’s tuition benefits the university and the student’s manager more than the student, what access or benefit might the corporate sponsor be able to derive from inducing a favorable bias in the teacher or school? Could we end up with a situation where Java, of all things, is taught to impressionable undergraduate students across the country? An obvious answer would be to secure a recruiting channel. The things researchers write can also be important to industry sponsors, and the opportunity to bias those exists as well.