If a person has the intellect / drive / grit / possibility etc. to pursue either an occupation as a university professor (where the productivity gain has been low) or a high end engineering job (with high productivity gains), it's obvious that if there's demand for university professors, universities will have to somewhat compete with the engineering firms for labour.

I guess the situation is somewhat different for the arts, but still, if the real wages had been constant since the 1600s I guess very few would pursue a career as professional classical pianists if it would be impossible to make more than minimum wage (even at the topmost levels).