Person1: “My answers to the OP question: there are many people who are in kolel and are complete batlonim and have no yiras shomaim. Just mitvas anoshim melumodo.”
Those are obviously not the people that the OP was referring to. If they are batlanim, they are not “in Kollel” by definition, even if they spend their day hanging out in the Beis. For that matter, you can say that the janitor is in kollel too (that would actually be more accurate than saying that the batlanim are in kollel.). Additionally, they are a minority and should not be brought up in every Kollel discussion in order to make it sound like that is what kollel is about. All Avreichim whom I know are extremely serious masmidim and bnei Torah and bnei aliyah.
“I do agree that there are more gdoylim (in both torah and maasim tovim) to be found inside the kolel than outside. That’s not surprising, because someone who is ben alie will try harder to stay in torah learning.”
That had occurred to me as well. That someone who is a more ruchniyus person to start with is more LIKELY to end up in Kollel (not to imply that there can’t be very Ruchnius people who are working, just talking about probabilities here. After all, someone who has no desire for Ruchnius is a lot less likely to consider going to kollel).