There's a difference between trying to recoup a decent estimation of costs vs. just typing a number then adding zeroes on the end until your keyboard breaks.
Short-term, reasonable non-competes are a necessary evil since the last thing a corpo wants is to invest a bunch of resources into promoting a talent for them to bounce after a few months taking their newfound training and audience with them, since that prevents the corpo from getting a return on their investment. It's not a perfect system by any means - I don't like that a potentially crooked corpo has the means to control a talent's career post-graduation, and I think relieving them of the non-compete clause would be a show of good faith - but the arrangement exists for a reason.
It's very easy to empathise solely with the talents in these arrangements since we've seen so many being mistreated by corrupt corpos recently, but at the same time I feel honest, reputable corpos should have the means to protect their rights too.