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Don't the vast majority of kids who enter the portal without finding a new destination just ... stay? I'm pretty sure there aren't rules against staying in that case. Entering the portal doesn't void one's LOI. And if they signed 4-year contracts, they can't be booted. 

In that sense, entering the portal isn't any different than applying for a new job while already employed. Many people do that without any plan to leave unless they get an unexpectedly big bite. 

On returning or not.. that is completely up to the player and coaches. 99 times out of 100, the player is gone.

Correct, but in those cases the employee doesn't have to publicly post their openness to a forum that their own employer also is a member to.

They can return, but you have to wonder about the ramifications within the program, particularly considering to even be looking, the kid likely wasn't exceedingly happy with his role prior.

I completely agree. It's complicated and uncomfortable. And may unglue some teams. Of course, the previous system where all the power resided with coaches was complicated and uncomfortable, too. But apologists didn't notice or mind for sake of "tradition" because they liked the feel of amateurism.

I don't like the new system. It is very clumsy. But I equally dislike the habits of NCAA amateurism apologists that contributed to this sort of breaking point in 2019. The transfer portal is the inevitable consequence of decades of resisting that NCAA players receive compensation. Because that led to the NCAA standing on its last leg in court, hellbent on preventing compensation and newly open to fixing other criticisms that opponent lawyers (and judges in summation) have levied against them.

Many of those criticisms relate to the power asymmetries involved in player contracts. And in the wake of O'Bannon et al. and newly proposed California/federal legislation, the NCAA is suddenly interested in fixing those criticisms. Namely: How their coaches can safely shop around and leave without consequence but the players previously couldn't safely shop around and how non-grad transfers had to (always) sit out a year. Etc.

Anyway, we can call the transfer portal inelegant and problematic. And I have. Nevertheless, although there's a chance the current system has solved no problems in net (that it created as many new problems as it solved) ...

(1) it still has a couple inches more justice
(2) and all of this is the NCAA's (and - to an extent - all amateurism apologists') own fault

People transfer colleges all the time for all sorts of reasons.  If another school has a better fit of an educational program I wouldn't tell a kid to stay at the inferior program out of school loyalty.  Seems dumb to tell them that for athletic programs.

Yep.  With adulthood come responsibilities and consequences for one's choices.

So we gotta put four-year scholarships in place?

all this portal does is put the athlete's names out in the open available to the press & public for scrutiny by the fans

the coaches always found out in the past because they had to grant the scholarship release

this does allow other programs to reach out to athletes to see if they may be interested and a fit for that program w/o contacting the current coach - this simply avoids a few phone calls or emails

That's all true regarding the transparency, but it's not everything. This also allows players to save a place with their current team while shopping for a new team simultaneously. That flexibility/safety (power shift) for players is just as new as the transparency.

going down to FCS may not be a bad idea for some kids...