Can I say that the most obvious and downside-free solution, if we get people’s heads straight, is to have women get married later? Not even that much later- let’s say 21, with the guys around the same age or hey, even a bit older.
Funny story- the guy who’s the money behind NASI originally started off with this idea, and he traveled to all the seminaries to talk to the principals, asking them to encourage the girls to wait to get married as a method of ending the shidduch crisis in exchange for a donation to the school. All of the principals apologize and said that sociologically, this couldn’t work- there is a culture among girls of panic and paranoia, where for ever second you’re “on the market” your market value goes down until you’ve reached age 20 and you’ve withered on the vine. (Or worse, 22, when you’re already a raisin.) So the principals said it wouldn’t work, and the guy decided to try getting guys married younger instead.
Literally, though, this makes so much more sense. More time waiting to date is more time to mature, which is always a good thing. (At age 18-19, a girl still has another 6-7 years until her brain is fully developed.) In the kollel system, or even in today’s pressured financial climate where so many families need two incomes, a girl who’s had her schooling not compounded with the pressures of dating, marriage, and pregnancy but rather as a single can finish more quickly and with more menuchas hanefesh, and can earn an income much more quickly rather than be dependent on parental support. (In fact, guys starting college while single might not be the worst idea for the same reason, and I do know guys who are doing it.) Also, many girls come out of seminary starry-eyed and idealistic, and crash down a few months later. The guy they happily get engaged to in October might not be the guy she would have wanted had she waited til May. Girls should be allowed time to mellow out.
I propose a one-year minimum freezer for girls. Give them time to get jobs, begin school, re-adjust to real life without the pressure of shidduchim and a complete change of lifestyle on their backs. Apply all the same tactics they use to get boys engaged younger to get girls engaged older.