In one word, yes. To give a rationale to that, during that whole period of time there's an opportunity cost to going to university, especially for master's and PhDs. These people are graduating with $90,000 to $120,000 worth of student debt. During the time they are studying, they cannot work in another capacity. They may be lab assistants or teaching assistants and they get paid very little. They may get an NSERC...tops, they may get $17,000 a year. They are graduating with a PhD, on average at the age of 36. Compared to someone who left after high school and started working with the federal public service, and the time they can give to the public service before they would like to retire--but the earliest they could retire is 61 or 63 because of the penalties involved--the service they give to the public is not in any way—
On March 29th, 2007. See this statement in context.