If you strip it of context then sure. Grad students working on pl research are largely funded by the government, often by the military. They work in a subfield that has low adoption among undergrads, especially undergrads from schools other than top ranked schools. The work seeks to solve a specific set of problems in cs and software engineering, which may or may not be the most impactful problems out there. We also see vast differences in formal methods between US and European institutions both in coursework and in research.