tb: In answer to your poll: It’s better not to know.
When we started in kollel, long ago- well 30 years ago -with no visible means of support- Hashem made many nissim v’niflaos-a.k.a. amazing coincidences- that enabled us to go on, not for so very long, perhaps, but longer than we would have thought possible. Would He have done this, if it was all budgeted out and worked, down to the last nickel? And the same thing happened to our friends, on a greater scale, proportionate, it seemed, to their determination to stay in learning. My husband is,B”H a baal achrayis and knew what had to be done and when was enough. Is it so very different now?
Here’s what I think:
Long ago in America, it wasn’t all that necessary to go beyond eighth grade in yeshiva. (Boys and girls). You could daven and learn enough based on that, and the world, including public high school had no resemblance to today. In the course of time it was necessary to go to yeshiva high school, and later, to have a post high school as a year of learning l’shma, and also as a buffer for interacting with secular society. I’m NOT saying that a few years of kolel are necessary in the same way, but I really feel the starting out in kollel, for a few years, starts off married life entirely differently, in terms of values,and priorities a.k.a.kedusha. As the secular world degenerates so rapidly, it seems to me that short- term kollel is pretty important, if at all possible, for most people.