Ben Torah: Your analogies between kollel members and other professions is misleading, I think. Baseball players, academics, lawyers, doctors, and entertainers are all paid because they DO SOMETHING – they produce something tangible – either they draw fans to the game or entertainment venue, or they heal the sick, represent the client, or produce scholarly works. These professionals do not expect to be paid money to sit in law school, medical school, graduate school, training camp, ect. on the basis of their future production value.
Many kollel men will go on to be productive members of the community – poskim, rabbeim, mashgichim, roshei yeshiva, dayanim, writers of seforim. Most will not (thats the sad truth; most people learning in kollel do not have the intellectual ability or personal qualities to go on to produce something for others with their Torah learning – they will likely sit and learn forever).
In either case, learning in kollel is at best comparable to studying for a future profession. I am unaware of any students that get paid for their schooling efforts alone. Perhaps the community may wish to sponsor the studies of particularly gifted students that can be expected to become productive practitioners of the Torah they study. But to make that the standard and expect the kehilla to sponsor mediocre students with little potential for further accomplishments, i just don’t know . .